Do you think that’s why the co-worker was so determined to convert me, a practicing, devout Catholic? She gets a toaster for every Catholic she converts?
StG
I meant go after Catholics, like talking down about their religion, not for a prize, lol. A toaster would have been at least something to walk away with. The permissive nature of many Catholics goes against everything a controlling uber conservative religion like JWs stand for.
What is their stance on husbands who want to leave an unhappy marriage?
Excellent! I hope you have a blast. I am a Jew, and of course Jews are also discouraged from celebrating Christmas. But I find there’s a great deal of secular fun and joy in getting together with the community to light lights against the cold and dark, and celebrate the turn of the seasons. I still feel guilty about having a tree, but I love Christmas celebrations.
Bolding mine.
You will be assimilated!:D:p
I’m curious about the relationship with your wife. There’s a part of me that feels skeevy for even asking, so feel free to not answer. But damn it all I’m curious!
You obviously love your wife given how much you moved the world for her birthday party, but did you fall in love with her through “traditional” means? Or do JWs have some kind of arranged marriage situation going on where you learned to love her?
Before marriage did you have to go to a pre-marriage workshop thingy? I know that it’s pretty common in most Christian-based religions. If that’s the case, did they talk about love and cherish each other and the like, or was it much more “do it for Jehovah?”
Lastly, did they talk to you about sex? I would imagine it’s beyond “wait until marriage”. Did they only say it’s for procreation? Did they look down on things like different positions or kinks or the things that make sex fun/crazy?
I get the impression that you and your wife do not have children. I am curious about the kinds of conflicts that arise when a couple with children decide together to leave the JWs. If the children want to stay with the JWs, it seems like that could get very ugly. Do you know of any such cases?
I don’t want to pre-empt the OP, but in my family’s case, “very ugly” is an understatement. I keep trying to explain, but I’m not willing to get specific here and I can’t seem to convey it adequately otherwise.
I have no beef with the supernatural theology, but the social side of the religion is utterly, utterly poisonous and has completely destroyed my family. I know I’m better off without them but it still really hurts to have so many family members hate you just for existing (have you ever had people burn photographs of you? Not a nice feeling). My heart goes out to justanothermike, because I imagine his experience is much worse than mine and yet he seems to be dealing with it so well.
The same as for wives.
I remember Christmas when I was a kid, before my parents became JWs. It was a magical time full of wondering what was in those beautifully wrapped boxes, who would we get to see at the different family members’ houses that we visited, and what were we going to eat. Good food, fun, and family was so great. Then it all went away. I still remember my mom telling me that we weren’t going to celebrate anymore and selling it, like all JWs do, that now I could get presents any time, not just on one day of the year. My parents would no longer be held down by that one day. My parents rarely ever bought me another toy again. My grandparents got me stuff though, and even gave me things around the holidays, which was okay as long as they didn’t expressly say that it was for Christmas.
Have fun with your celebration! We hope to with ours too.
It’s called ask me “anything”. Of course, I guess it isn’t called “I’ll answer anything”, lol.
You obviously love your wife given how much you moved the world for her birthday party, but did you fall in love with her through “traditional” means? Or do JWs have some kind of arranged marriage situation going on where you learned to love her?
JWs don’t have arranged marriages, but you are supposed to only marry other JWs. You will be reprimanded in some fashion for marrying “out of the Lord”, or someone outside of the organization. There are way more sisters than their are brothers, which gives brothers more choice. Most JWs marry very young, like 18-19 young, some still in high school, as that’s the only way to have sex without shunning. Parents have approved of very young marriages because “it’s better than them messing around and getting disfellowshipped”. All dating is to be done with a view toward marriage.
My wife and I were introduced by someone we both knew. I have never dated in the typical fashion. My wife had a few suitors, and I never had any. I have to say that although I love my wife, I never got to have the experience of someone pursuing me and never got to pick someone. I know that sounds harsh to some extent, but believe me we’ve talked about everything. One thing we had to examine as this all came crashing down was why we got married. We do genuinely love one another, but our road to get here wasn’t “normal”. Young JWs aren’t allowed to date without a chaperone present at all times. Her family didn’t like me, or should I say her parents didn’t like me, her sisters and I were cool. I wasn’t from there, and they didn’t like their girl growing up and moving on.
Believe me, we’ve had a lot of rough times. She was very sheltered and 19 when we married. Her parents didn’t even have a tv and were extreme JWs. I was 22 and lived on my own already. We did do a lot of growing up together, though honestly we had a father/daughter type relationship for years which was weird. I felt like I had to raise her. It was very tough. We’ve had to grow tremendously as people, and leaving the JWs has really helped my wife. She has come into her own and I’m so happy for her. I always pushed her to be her own person and not just some version of me or something to make me happy. She’s finding her own friends and hobbies and things and it’s beautiful. I didn’t always handle it well and had a hard time backing off as she grew as a person. Some of that probably could have happened outside of a JW relationship and is just a sign of being human though.
We haven’t always had the answers, but we have always been willing to put in the work to make things better if they were in need.
Before marriage did you have to go to a pre-marriage workshop thingy? I know that it’s pretty common in most Christian-based religions. If that’s the case, did they talk about love and cherish each other and the like, or was it much more “do it for Jehovah?”
Nope, not at all. They do not have such and I wish they had. They have some generic ridiculous barely real world Family book written by them that some people go through before marriage. Certainly though since we were kids we heard talks on how a husband should love his wife and cherish her as he does himself, and how a wife should have love and deep respect with a spirit of mildness toward her husband, things like that. It’s all high and mighty Bible talk though, rarely ever into the real grit of a day by day marriage. Oh, and those talks were always given by men that would make tacky jokes and stereotype women as nagging or domestic. It was cringeworthy.
Lastly, did they talk to you about sex? I would imagine it’s beyond “wait until marriage”. Did they only say it’s for procreation? Did they look down on things like different positions or kinks or the things that make sex fun/crazy?
Surprisingly, they talked about sex in terms like anal and oral right in front of kids at the meetings. That was always in the context though of how such things were off limits. They also had talks condemning masturbation. I believe I was probably 16 or so when assigned to give that talk. I was a damn hypocrite, lol. No kid should be put in that position. They are very prudish as a people.
Fun fact. At one point in time in the organization oral was seen as sex, but not anal. A man could have anal with women he wasn’t married to and it wasn’t seen as cheating, lol. Idiots.
My wife’s father gave her a rousing sex talk the day before we got married. My wife is out right now, but I believe the exact wording was along the lines of “it’s going to hurt, and you’re going to bleed, I just thought you should know”, and that was it. We were both virgins when we got married. As I get older and talk to more ex-JWs and read forums and such, I am finding out that a lot of people were sexually involved to some degree prior to marriage.
By the way, if you’re ever counseled for masturbating or getting in a compromising position with another person the elders will ask very probing questions and want to know every dirty detail. They then write it all down and place it in a file so that follows you wherever you go so that decades later the elders at your new congregation can read that you once had a problem with porn and masturbation.
Have you sought out any other former members as a support group?
Nope, no kids for us. I’m the oldest of 4, she’s the oldest of 5, we both participated in raising young kids. My youngest sister is 20 years younger than I am, my wife’s youngest sister is something like 16 years younger than her.
Fun fact: JWs have discouraged people from having kids at many points in their history. You see, if the world is about to end, you don’t want to have a kid to deal with while trying to maintain your faith. They believe that the world governments will turn against all religion and essentially outlaw it and that only JWs will then practice their beliefs. At that point they will be thrown in prison and likely threatened with death if not killed, so having kids to worry about would be an issue. Additionally, with their outlook on this world being so bleak and their perception that the world is intrinsically bad and evil and controlled by Satan, they don’t want to bring kids into this world. After all, the new world paradise is just around the corner, and then they can have perfect kids in a perfect environment.
We just knew that kids weren’t for us. We love them, but don’t want the life of raising them. That’s just a personal thing though, not a JW thing. Were we to happen to have one now it would be tough for us to figure out how to raise them as we’re figuring out our own feelings on things anew. Plus, we’d have no family support whatsoever.
Now let’s talk about the MANY cases where family splits and kids are caught in the middle. If they were brought up JW and have any age on them they’ll likely go with the JW parent of their own volition. Regardless, if they’re with the JW parent, they will be told at some point that mommy or daddy doesn’t serve Jehovah and will be destroyed at Armageddon. If not told explicitly, they’ll put two and two together and do the math themselves.
Imagine as a kid having one parent telling you that everything in this world, all holidays, etc. are bad and will pass away when the expiration date comes up and Jehovah executes this wicked system of things. On the other hand, you have another parent that you love that is embroiled in this system of things, doing things that you’ve been cautioned against, and you’re told that essentially they’re a bad person, but you know in your heart that they aren’t. They celebrate birthdays, and yet no one is beheaded. They celebrate Christmas and have fun but you can’t participate. They may even have other kids involved that get to do those things. It’s heartbreaking.
The parent that leaves the JWs is at a HUGE disadvantage. Usually there is other family involved that is in the organization, so the JW parent has a huge community around them while the one that leaves is shunned and totally alone. You then have to watch your kid be indoctrinated into a cult and turned against you on some level. And you know, in the back of your mind, that if that kid leaves the religion at some point, all of those JWs that are fighting so hard for custody will drop them like a bad habit and shun them forever.
Ugh, I got mad just writing that and I’ve only read of such situations. It is devastating and almost always goes however the JWs want it to go. They will fight for that parent and they even have a booklet produced to help their members succeed in custody battles, if memory serves me. It’s so gross.
There are forums that I joined that helped me along the journey.
As far as in person, I have reconnected with some old ex-JW friends and picked up our friendship, which is nice.
For my first Shunniversary this September I tried to have a Shunniversary Party. My goal was to invite all of the ex-JWs locally that I could find to get together, reminisce, heal, and hang out. I invited 10-15 or so. One person showed. It was disappointing to say the least. I had people that were never JWs that would have come. I should have invited them instead.
The one guy that showed said that he tried similar things when he left and was similarly unsuccessful.
People leave for all reasons. Some are kicked out (disfellowshipped) and still believe that JWs have “The Truth”. They believe it and leave in tremendous shame. Others are disfellowshipped and just never want to hear of JWs again. We share a common past regardless and everyone that I’ve met has been happy to talk about it, but for some reason when I reached out it bombed.
Nobody asked, but I think some might like to know what I struggle with the most since leaving. I’ve been thinking about it myself lately. I’d have to go with:
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Shunning, obviously. I do miss the freedom to talk to my family. The “friends” I had in the organization aren’t something I miss so much. It was a toxic environment. That’s not to say that our family wasn’t as well to some degree because of it, but I’d like the option of at least keeping in touch. Last I saw on Facebook before being blocked my mom and sister were hoping to move. I won’t know where they live anymore. That’s very weird, not to even know where family lives.
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I’m going to die, and I’m just realizing it. I know that sounds all kinds of messed up, but you have to understand that since I was a little kid I was told that this world was going to end any day now. That was decades ago. I was never supposed to get old enough to get a job, drive a car, graduate high school, marry, etc. I’ll be 40 next August and that freaks me out. Almost half of my life, assuming I live to somewhere around the average age, is gone and wasted in a cult. True, lots of people waste their lives in other ways, but it still stings. So much potential was wasted. Time is the one thing you can’t get back. I have a relatively small amount ahead of me and if nothing else, I have to face the fact that someday I’ll die and I no longer have some fairy tale hope at the end of it. I’ve really struggled with this, and my best method of coping has been to focus on controlling what I can, and that’s leading the best life I can. Whenever my day comes I want to look back and be satisfied that I did the best I could with what I had and that I made the lives of other people better in some way instead of looking forward to a vast chasm of nothingness.
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I’ve had to reevalutate everything in my life and see if it was my choice or some JW default. As mentioned above, I love my wife and we’ve been through so many battles together, but the fact that I didn’t have a chance to date or be dated or even choose much bothers me on a level.
Also, my wife and I clean houses. I struggle mightily with knowing that I had the intellect for more. Lots of JWs get into cleaning because they are discouraged from attending college and you can clean houses and make more money than working at a lot of other manual labor jobs with little education. I always tried to get out of cleaning but ended up back in it because of that fact. I could earn more cleaning than flipping burgers or telemarketing or whatever. At the same time, I love our clients and they’ve become our friends and lifeline out of the JWs, and I love working with my wife every day (well, most days, lol, and she’d say the same). Still, there’s a part of me that wonders what could have been. True, I could go back to school, but it would be a huge adjustment and I’ve just been out of the game for so long. I do have aspirations of getting into marketing in some capacity as I geek out on it online and learn as much as I can, but finding time (and mostly energy) after cleaning a few houses for the day is tough.
- I have zero retirement. Many JWs don’t believe that this system will go on and they don’t prepare for retirement. My dad died with no retirement and no life insurance. I do have the latter, but not the former. With a limited income due to limited skill and limited time left to earn off of a body that will get worn down with age, it is pressing that I save for retirement.
I don’t want to be all doom and gloom though. I just chose to focus on this aspect because it’s real too.
Fun Story - I found out last week that my wife has never had a water gun. Apparently water guns are the gateway guns to mass shootings and glorify violence, which of course God hates, unless of course he’s smiting nations that aren’t his chosen people, but I digress. Anyway, so I ordered some water guns off Amazon and hid them in the house. On Sunday we went to play disc golf at a park, and I told my wife she had a surprise waiting in her disc golf bag that she could only open when I told her. Of course, I had a water gun in my bag too. On the first hole after she drove her first disc down the fairway I ambushed her with my water gun and then she realized what was in her bag. We had a lot of fun playing water gun disc golf that day.
If I may make a retirement savings suggestion; since you don’t work for a large company it would be more of a challenge to set up a 401K or the like. However, through most banks you can set up a Roth IRA savings account or CD w/ take-home pay and there will be no taxes to pay if you wait till you’re 59 1/2 to access those funds. You can also set up traditional IRAs but those have less flexibility whereas you can borrow from a Roth under a limited set of circumstances.
I understand feeling like time is pressing down on you, I’m 46 and don’t feel I’ve saved enough due to other situations; but you can put up to $6500/year into retirement and it WILL add up over the years.
/derail off/
Thanks! My plan is to go with a Roth IRA and put whatever I can afford to up to the max (but let’s face it, expendable income isn’t always easy to find by the tens of thousands at $6500x2) put aside for each of us into Index Funds through Vanguard. Nothing fancy, but low risk, low fees, something like an S&P and just let it ride until retirement.
Great! FYI, there are no fees when you go through a regular bank unless you do so through their own investing products; otherwise it’s a set interest rate for the CDs and can fluctuate for savings (as usual).
You can invest for each tax year from January 1 of that year through the following April 14 (if you do your taxes on the 15th like I do, that is).
Do JWs or have they ever forbid their children from attending college? Having them instead become immediate employees in a JW owned business?
Reason I ask is because when I was a kid I went to a Catholic grade school along with my best friend. He was a much better student than I was and although we both intended to attend college some day he had greater aspirations than I did to attend a top ranked college.
Then, in 8th grade, his parents converted the entire family to JW. He was immediately transferred to public school, I lost my best friend (his parents made him hang out with other JW kids) and although we attended the same public high school we became estranged. He became quite the average student and seemed to have lost the desire to excel in school. I think he was both angry and jealous that I would still be going on to college after graduation in 1988.
I always assumed his downward slide was from his future being taken away by his parents. He went on to work as a carpet layer for another JW.
Yes, the organization has in the past forbade college, and now says that people can attend some measure of post-secondary education, but typically they recommend a two year program in some sort of trade or nursing or something similar. Of course, it would be best if you devoted “the vigor of youth” to ministry right out of high school, but if you feel you need a bit more earning power you can get some education, but not too much. They don’t want people going to college and learning to think critically. It was decimate their ranks. Rather, they encourage followers to do only what they need to in order to support themselves in serving Jehovah as fully as possible. In other words, they are okay with you getting skills if it means that you’ll be able to work part-time and devote more time knocking on doors and spreading their message.
There are many businesses in things like carpet laying, cleaning, window washing is big, etc., that are owned by JWs. JWs often pay low wages to other JWs and expect more of them. After all, what are they going to do, leave? They have no earning power in the market. They often take advantage of one another.
I graduated salutatorian from my high school class and took all advanced classes. My counselors and teachers were beside themselves when they found out that I would not be attending college. They just shook their heads and were so disappointed. I understand why now. Apparently some family that found out were really disappointed as well. Obviously they weren’t JWs. It still bothers me that I didn’t take that chance when I had it.