I remembered absolutely refusing to do the chaperone thing. That was absolutely not going to happen. So, I started dating a worldly guy that I went to school with to the horror of my family. There was a lot of fighting going on at home, but I persisted.I soon got a guilty conscience for sleeping with him and decided a confession was in order. I called an elder and he said to meet at the KH on a certain date to talk and there was a JC waiting for me. I told them I was sorry. My parents were angry with me and our whole household was in crisis. I was ready to be done with this guy. And, after listening kindly, they decided to disfellowship me.
I went through a horrendous depression, having suicidal thoughts. I made it through by exercise, walking 5 or 6 miles a day and working in retail. That was the only time I could be around normal people because I really wasn't supposed to be associating with worldly people and I was shunned by the Witnesses. This was when I learned how to live a double life. I would sometimes hang out with friends at the local college, partying in the dorms. I met up the old boyfriend again and for a few dates, and when I asked to be reinstated, I lied my ass off about all the things I was doing. I made quite the show and got reinstated after 6 months.
This was a strange time. I knew the org was crap, but I met a guy in another congregation who thought the same thing, but still was involved. He thought the double life was possible, so I dated him for awhile. We did normal things, like go to his work picnic, and we also did sneaky things, like going to wild parties, and we found times and places to have sex. We were both living at home and when our parents would go away for the weekend, we had either my house or his house to ourselves. Then there was always the car, parked in the woods overlooking his house, like a middle finger flipped at his parents. And once, I was housesitting, so there was that opportunity.
When rumors got out, we talked to the elders in the backroom of his hall, but no JC. We lied our asses off. No, of course we hadn't done anything. Who and where are these people making these accusations? We got off completely free. After being df'd for telling the truth, I learned that lying was the better option.
We had discussions about how viable it would be to do the double life thing long-term. It was stressing me out. I didn't like being a hypocrite. "Why not?" he asked, "You do everything else!"
A big kink happened to the relationship when he was in a terrible car accident and was flown to shock trauma. He called me from the emergency room and asked for me to come. He was in bad shape. His face was bashed in, they would have to restructure it and his leg was damaged and always walked with a limp after that. He lost a lot of blood and the HLC was there. It was obvious they were there as enforcers. He looked at me with a look of terror on his face that I'll never forget. It was a combination of , "I don't want to die," and, "You're the only one who understands me, but you can't be here with me because we're dating under the table and not recognized as officially dating."
It was horrible. That look is burned in my mind. He took months of rehab and I didn't see him much. He had to stay home and most of our dating had been sneaking around. He changed, maybe because of the literal head injury, but also, I think because he scared himself and thought he needed to straighten up and fly right. You never know when you might die.
That was the end of that relationship. He decided to buckle down and follow the rules and I just couldn't live the WT life.
By this time, I had gotten another job. In construction. Working with all men. It was kinda fun. One of the guys saw me being all sad and asked if everything was okay. I told him the story of my boyfriend nearly dying in a car accident. He was sympathetic. Very nice for once. Yoy see, he had been annoying me for months, ever since I started the job. He was just goofy, did silly things, made stupid jokes, and every single day he asked me when I was going to go out with him.
Well, after this exchange, I decided it might be okay to go out to lunch at McDonald's with him. He was nice in the car. He wasn't showing off in front of the guys anymore. Another day we went to the grocery store and got a chocolate pie to share. After work one day, we stopped at a little old tavern that had 50 cent beers. I drank until I fell off a bar stool and couldn't drive home. So, he took me to his house and I met his parents for the first time 3 sheets to the wind. They went out and we had sex on what was pretty much a first date, if you don't count the lunch dates.
My parents got angrier and angrier that I wasn't coming home on time, or spending nights away from the house. I had stopped going to the meetings, and so one night after I had been gone all weekend, my dad told me to come get my things and kicked me out. I stayed with a friend of my new guy friend for a few weeks before I found an apartment, which was far away from home. I was relieved to be out of my parents house.
I continued dating this guy and we were a little wild for about a year, drinking, dragracing, tried pot once and hated it. And, of course we were still having sex; we were falling in love. About 2 years later, we got married and bought a little house that was a fixer-upper, fixed it up, flipped it and bought the house we are in now. We had a son and we just celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary!
What was different with him was that we didn't have to hide our dating. I hadn't liked having to hide my dating with JW guy because we didn't have a chaperone. I didn't want to date someone who had to hide me. We had plenty of time to get to know each other. We were always together. His parents actually liked me, despite not heing Catholic, and invited me around for holidays and family vacations. We knew we were sexually compatible. We took a couple years to make sure it was the real thing, and by the time we got married, we were sure. We've only had one difficult time after I had our son and was diagnosed with Postpartum Onset Bipolar disorder, but after my son got a little older and started sleeping through the night and my medication got regulated, we've been great.
We've been together 25 years, are still in love, and I can't imagine marrying a JW or living a Witness life. You have to step away from the dysfunction of the cult to find a relationship that will work for you based on true compatibility, personality wise, physical attraction wise, sexually and with compatible values and life plans.
It's wonderful when it works, and I am so sorry for those folks that haven't had the same kind of luck in relationships. I've got a true, loving life partner. I wish everyone had the same.
