Was it a fantasy or did you have an actual relationship? This man is as far from living on the "wild side". The way he lived was similar to how JW's conduct themselves. He was very respectful, never used foul language, didn't like people who did, rarely drank alcohol and, if he did, never to the point of getting drunk. I think that might've been why we were so compatible, we were similar types of people. I did try to bring him into the religion, we spoke about it, I gave him our publications and DVD's but he wasn't an overly religions person. When we discussed why he wasn't, he would simply say that God would want us to act a certain why and live our lives as good people and he said he didn't need to attend services in a man-made religion to achieve that. I have to admit I had a hard time justifying why JW's do what they do and how what he was doing was wrong. He was sure God looked at him as a good person and he was confident of that.
a-JW-girl
JoinedPosts by a-JW-girl
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Lifetime Regret for Not Expressing my Love to a Non-JW
by a-JW-girl ini want to impart some advice from my life experience that i hope will help others in a similar situation and prevent them from making the same mistakes i did, ruining my life.
to begin with, i’m a 52-year-old single woman, i’ve been a devout jw since i was a little girl.
i had an abusive dad who left my mom, my two sisters and me when we were fairly young.
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Lifetime Regret for Not Expressing my Love to a Non-JW
by a-JW-girl ini want to impart some advice from my life experience that i hope will help others in a similar situation and prevent them from making the same mistakes i did, ruining my life.
to begin with, i’m a 52-year-old single woman, i’ve been a devout jw since i was a little girl.
i had an abusive dad who left my mom, my two sisters and me when we were fairly young.
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a-JW-girl
punkofnice - you seem to have a very dim view of life...."in life we get bored with things and people" "you'd never live happily ever after" "not with this geezer" I thought I was depressed....wow...Maybe you should read it before commenting? Just a thought.
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Lifetime Regret for Not Expressing my Love to a Non-JW
by a-JW-girl ini want to impart some advice from my life experience that i hope will help others in a similar situation and prevent them from making the same mistakes i did, ruining my life.
to begin with, i’m a 52-year-old single woman, i’ve been a devout jw since i was a little girl.
i had an abusive dad who left my mom, my two sisters and me when we were fairly young.
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a-JW-girl
enoughisenough - I don't know about that....it's hard to make a sweeping generalization about a married person who finds someone else and that makes them a serial cheater. Remember, I knew this person for 20+ years and while we were never intimate or was he unfaithful with me, I knew what he was doing all the time and there were no other women. He had friends who were women but he wouldn't have to time to cheat with and them or even devote time to them. It wasn't like he was a player and went around seducing women for sexual reasons and then move on to the next. This thing between us just happened and as far as I know, nothing similar happened with any other woman and him. We were just too close for me not to notice or know about another relationship. The last thing I would think, if he had left his wife, was that he'd be with me and then find someone else. It wasn't like that at all.
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Lifetime Regret for Not Expressing my Love to a Non-JW
by a-JW-girl ini want to impart some advice from my life experience that i hope will help others in a similar situation and prevent them from making the same mistakes i did, ruining my life.
to begin with, i’m a 52-year-old single woman, i’ve been a devout jw since i was a little girl.
i had an abusive dad who left my mom, my two sisters and me when we were fairly young.
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a-JW-girl
Thank you Phizzy, I think you nailed it. You described my feelings perfectly. Sometimes things happen that you can't control....it just happens. Regarding your other post about second relationships. I find that to be the rule rather than the exception. My sister is the perfect example. I know other people who have told me the same thing...they got a divorce and THEN found their prefect mate. Maybe it's just an experience thing, I don't know, but I do know it does happen a lot.
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Lifetime Regret for Not Expressing my Love to a Non-JW
by a-JW-girl ini want to impart some advice from my life experience that i hope will help others in a similar situation and prevent them from making the same mistakes i did, ruining my life.
to begin with, i’m a 52-year-old single woman, i’ve been a devout jw since i was a little girl.
i had an abusive dad who left my mom, my two sisters and me when we were fairly young.
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a-JW-girl
Thank you, yes, I was trying to find out, through my sister, whether or not he mentioned to her if he was still married but I didn't want to sound too obvious or desperate. Regarding his feelings, you might be right and I thought along the same lines as you but I think he was confused and torn and didn't know what to do. I absolutely agree about him thinking I had principles because that's exactly what he told me a few times. He said I was "different" because I wasn't like everyone else. What a wonderful story about your sister ....and not too far removed from what I always thought would eventually happen between us but, as the Temptations would say "it was just my imagination, running away with me".. and I'm sorry for your loss.
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Lifetime Regret for Not Expressing my Love to a Non-JW
by a-JW-girl ini want to impart some advice from my life experience that i hope will help others in a similar situation and prevent them from making the same mistakes i did, ruining my life.
to begin with, i’m a 52-year-old single woman, i’ve been a devout jw since i was a little girl.
i had an abusive dad who left my mom, my two sisters and me when we were fairly young.
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a-JW-girl
I have read some of the replies here are I do agree and completely understand with what all of you you're saying and I appreciate your candor. Yes, I have been in therapy for many years for this and a few other things, mainly the effect of being a JW has had on my life. My therapist is not at all sympathetic with me continuing to be a JW which she blames for almost all of my issues. I have been going regularly but I don't think it's doing any good at all which is completely my fault for refusing the change but I just can't help it. Maybe it eventually will.
The one thing I don't think most of you understand is that this isn't some kind of flash in the pan where I madly fell in love with him at first sight. I met a lot of men both in and out of the Hall before, during and since I met him so it's not like I was sheltered or had a lack of choices. This one was simply the right one as our relationship developed naturally. Neither of us were looking for this to happen. It just did. The fit was just right and we both obviously saw something in each other for it to get this far. This goes back to the late 90's and developed very gradually as our relationship grew and we really got to know each other.
One issue I didn't bring up was that he had suspected his wife was cheating on him a couple of years after they had their second child. He made enough money where she could stay home and be a full time mom and she had a lot of time on her hands. He confided this to me and he actually cried about it in his office saying that he didn't want to lose her but he felt like a fool. That kind of came and went and he never brought it up again and neither did I. I has assumed they worked it out.
I completely understand about breaking up his family which was probably the driving force behind me never letting him know my true feelings and eventually shunning him. It was always in the back of my mind.
I truly believe our feelings for each other was real, but unspoken, and I absolutely knew he was also in love with me. Ironically, I became sure of that from how he reacted when I decided to not see him any longer. He became very hurt which was a constant theme he mentioned in our email/text fight. He had never acted that way towards me before, I never saw that side to him. He really wanted to see me regularly which, I guess, scared me. If he felt ambivalent towards me none of that would've happened. He wouldn't have been that angry.
Some background to this whole thing that probably matters is that my sister was a JW, she married another JW from our Hall and they ended up hating each other, she cheated on him with another man and they divorced after about 10 years of marriage. She was disfellowshipped, of course, and I didn't speak with her for years because of that. She married the man she was cheating with and they now have children and she couldn't be happier. That was a direct and personal example to me (not necessarily a good one!). She is completely out of the JW world and I am jealous of her for that but very happy for her and her family. We have reconciled and I see her occasionally. She told me she texts with the guy in question here occasionally, maybe a few times a year. I never asked her what's going on is his life and she never speaks much about him at all. I think she's trying to spare my feelings because she knew how I felt about him. She does know we had a fight and don't speak any longer. I suspect he told her all about it.
I really have no realistic notion that anything is going to change so I'm no deluding myself that it will. The purpose of my story was to put a seed in people's heads to look at situations from all sides and understand repercussions of decisions. The decisions of both doing something or not. The more I write about this, the more I'm inclined to drop him and email or text.
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Did becoming a JW influence you to give up something you enjoyed ?
by smiddy3 inwhen i was a teenager a younger fellow workmate was involved in the sport of judo.i got interested and went along to a number of sessions and took to it like a sponge to water ,and as a sport i was happy participating in.. not that much longer another workmate was getting re-activated in the religion of jw`s.
which i had never heard o before and then got interested in that .. conflict : was judo a sport that was compatible with j.w beliefs?
sadly i decided it was not and stopped any further involvement.. to this day i resent that decision i made back then .and i`m 82 years old now.. it was a sport i was comfortable doing and i enjoyed it.and i gave it up because of the religion .who knows what i may have achieved had i continued with it.
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a-JW-girl
Yes. I just posted my life story. The religion influenced me to give up the love of my life.
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19
Lifetime Regret for Not Expressing my Love to a Non-JW
by a-JW-girl ini want to impart some advice from my life experience that i hope will help others in a similar situation and prevent them from making the same mistakes i did, ruining my life.
to begin with, i’m a 52-year-old single woman, i’ve been a devout jw since i was a little girl.
i had an abusive dad who left my mom, my two sisters and me when we were fairly young.
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a-JW-girl
I want to impart some advice from my life experience that I hope will help others in a similar situation and prevent them from making the same mistakes I did, ruining my life. To begin with, I’m a 52-year-old single woman, I’ve been a devout JW since I was a little girl. I had an abusive dad who left my mom, my two sisters and me when we were fairly young. Our family is from South America, we used to be Roman Catholics. My mom decided to convert all of us to JW’s when we were young. Out of the four of us, I became the most devout. My mom and sisters did for a while but have come and gone over the years, I was really the only one who abided by all the rules, but I did bend them a bit with regard to the relationship I’ll mention here. I’m still a virgin, I’ve never cursed at all, went to services regularly, went out preaching, etc. I was a model JW. I consider myself an attractive woman. I’m South American, kind of short with long dark hair. I keep myself in shape with exercise and eating properly. Not to brag, but I have a very nice figure for a woman my age and I attract a lot of men. Men from the Hall have asked me out all the time and I have gone on dates occasionally, but nothing ever resulted in a long term or intimate relationship. I just never found another JW who I was seriously interested in.
When I was in my late 20’s and in college, I got a job at a firm in New York City where my sister also worked. It was really nice, all the comforts and benefits of a big company. I didn’t mingle with too many others unless I knew they were JW’s just like I was supposed to do and even then, I spent very minimal time with them. Very superficial chatting and they were all women. I generally kept to myself. After I was there for a while, my sister introduced me to one of her friends at work, I think she used to work for him but I’m not sure. He was about 8 or 9 years older than me, very nice guy. He was married and had a couple of kids. If he was on the floor I worked on, he’d stop by and talk to me for a little while, which I thought was nice. A few times when I was eating (alone) in the cafeteria, reading the Bible or the Watchtower, he would be eating with his friends, and he’d leave them to come sit with me to keep me company. Again, a really nice guy…. but he wasn’t a JW, so I wasn’t supposed to associate with him, but I did. I was lonely. My sister eventually left the company and, as much as I know it isn’t allowed, this guy and I became very good friends. He met my mom a few times when she came to visit me and she liked him too, my youngest sister too. We’d go to breakfast every morning in our cafeteria and sometimes to lunch. Occasionally he’d go shopping with me at lunch or even sometimes after work. We emailed a lot and did the AOL IM thing too. He even came over my apartment a few times to help me with some things that needed done and he helped me move once too. He never once did anything inappropriate even though we were alone in my apartment. He never tried to kiss or grab me. He never even really flirted with me. When we saw each other, we’d sometimes hug and then hug goodbye, but that was it. He was ALWAYS there for me, always, always, always. Anything I needed or wanted; he was there. He did more for me than I could expect anyone to do even taking me to doctor’s appointments if I needed someone to take me home after being anesthetized or if I thought I was going to be in pain. My own family didn’t do as much for me and neither did my supposed friends from the Hall. As time went on, I began to develop feelings for him, I had never met a man like him before or since. He was, to be blunt, perfect for me and I think I was perfect for him. But him being married and not a JW, I never let it go too far in my mind. As the years went by, we became very, very close, not like a boyfriend/girlfriend thing where we held hands or kissed but I think we loved each other in our own way, it was definitely mutual. I could tell he cared for me, I was special to him. People at work would see us together all the time and I really think they thought we were dating, and he was cheating on his wife. For him to take that chance and appear to be cheating made me assume he really liked me. I actually told him I loved him on an occasion or two but made it clear it was a friend thing even though I really meant it as love for him as a potential husband. I loved him dearly and would wish I had met him before he was married.….. I had truly fallen in love with him and thought about him all the time. I found myself talking about him to my family when I’d see them. I was so confused. I eventually left the company to do other things, go to graduate school for a different career, but we kept in touch, and I’d come back, and we’d go to lunch, and he’d spend hours with me even though he was supposed to be working. There were a couple of occasions where I made what one could consider a slight “move” on him. Once was when I was in school, I came back to work to have lunch with him, and, like the dozens of times before, he insisted on paying for everything. I became overly emotional towards him and couldn’t resist so, without telling him, I grabbed his face and kissed him, on the cheek but near his lips. I did this in front of other people at the job, in the cafeteria. A normal person would’ve been angry for doing that at work to a married man, but he didn’t flinch, and I think appreciated it. The other time was when he was helping me with something in my apartment. We were in the bathroom and the entire ceiling had collapsed when the upstairs neighbor’s bathroom flooded. I was showing him the damage and when he was looking up at the ceiling, I stuck my chest out and rubbed my breasts on his arm a few times. I don’t think he noticed it was my breasts but if he did, he didn’t mention anything. I don‘t know what I was trying to accomplish or what I would’ve done if he responded.
He always made time for me and always at my convenience. He devoted a lot of his time to me. At this point I was sure he was in love with me too and I think his wife and him were having issues which should’ve been my opportunity to find out if we had a future together. I should’ve just invited him over one night and ask him outright if he loved me. Instead, I did the exact opposite, I kind of pulled back and didn’t go to see him. He had asked me to stop by more often, but I kept making excuses why I couldn’t or extending the date. I was afraid of what might happen. I was afraid of showing my love for him and him rejecting me or even accepting me, I was torn. He got frustrated because he wanted to see me more often and we had an email fight, and we didn’t speak any longer. About a year or so later he texted me out of the blue and apologized for being coarse with me, but I didn’t respond right away and waited a day or so and then gave him a half-hearted response but also included a link to the JW website as an excuse for why I was so “busy”. It was lame and stupid. After I sent the text, I thought how thoughtless I was. He responded immediately and was very nice and sweet. Like an idiot, I waited almost 2 days to respond, and he had had it. He told me off…I deserved it. He had always made time for me, but I kept him waiting for 2 days to send a text. We got into an even worse text fight, and he said goodbye to me and promised he’d never speak to me again. About an hour after he sent that text, I realized I missed my chance, and I cried the rest of the afternoon at work. My heart was completely broken, I loved him so much and had a second chance but made the biggest mistake of my life.
That was almost 10 years ago and, as he always has, he kept his word and has never contacted me. My sister and him are still friendly, but he doesn’t talk to her much any longer either and he doesn’t speak with my youngest sister at all either. I don’t think he wants to be bothered with anyone in my family any longer. We all have our own problems and I think he just had enough of it. I’ve come close to sending him a text so many times, but I haven’t done it. We’re both 25 years older now from when we first met, and nothing has changed. I still love him with all my heart but I’m afraid, if I contact him, he will tell me off again and I wouldn’t be able to stand the rejection.
My point is that I should’ve done something about this a LONG time ago. I should’ve made the move. I should’ve told him I was truly in love with him. We were perfect for each other and even if he had said no and didn’t want to end his marriage, at least I would’ve known either way. Now I have no idea. I will always have this feeling that he was going to say yes and now, so many years later, we would’ve been married for a long time and my life would now be completely different and my heart would be full of love and joy instead of bitterness. I love and miss him so much I can’t begin to tell you how upset I am because I always followed everything a good JW was supposed to do, and nothing is working out for me in my personal life. I feel cheated. I feel like I wasted my entire life and I’ve turned into a miserable woman. I have no desire to meet a man, I have given up and have retreated even deeper into the religion and consume myself with it because there is nothing else left even though I know in the back of my mind it’s what destroyed my life in the first place. Please, please, please don’t make the same mistakes I made and let this happen to you. True love is much more important than anything else in your life, especially this “religion”.