by AK - Jeff 58 Replies latest jw experiences
Welcome, , macncheese, DV, and snowbird!! And a HELLO back to JE1234!
I think how a JW began to discover (and to confirm to himself) that the WTS was a cult is my favorite kind of story. With all the pressure to always be loyal, always trust, and of course stay AWAY from the internet... I like to hear how such odds got overcome. --Snowbird, I can imagine the swooning!
I hope more lurkers will feel encouraged to register and post. This thread is a great place to begin.
bebu
I'm not a newbie but here goes anyhow. I was a regular pioneer "serving where the need is great" in Ireland in the early 90s. There was so much hypocrisy there I couldn't ignore it anymore. I was already upset, having given up going to college only to watch the PO send his two daughters a couple years later. I moved to England, married, then moved back to the states. In England I saw even more (for example, an elder was molesting my now brother-in-law). After being in the states for a year, my husband had enough and left. A couple months after that I just couldn't be bothered anymore. Then, another xjw gave me a copy of crisis of conscience. Reading that book got rid of the guilt and showed to me that is was just a cult run by people. I felt so much better then and never looked back. This board is still a great source of confirming information that I look at every week or so. I've lost my family, but have gained my life.
When I was in, I was really in. I believed it all, with all of my heart. Like a lot of JWs, I married young. I'd been married for almost two years when I strayed a bit, due to an odd set of work-related circumstances, and got intimate with another woman.
My wife was quite pregnant at the time, and there was practically no sex between us, so I, like any healthy, handsome, red-blooded, male in his early 20s, was particularly vulnerable (which is to say "horny") to the advances of an attractive young woman.
No, I did not do "the bad thing" with her. I fondled her privates and she fondled mine and, knowing where we were heading and not wanting to go there, I somehow mustered the strength to extricate myself from the situation just in time. So, there was kissing and petting and fondling, but there was no penetration or copulation of any kind, nor was there any orgasm.
Nevertheless, I felt guilty about what I had done. I wrestled with the guilt for a few months and finally couldn't take it anymore. I confessed to my wife, and then, good little well-indoctrinated JW that I was, met with the elders and confessed to them, as well.
It was an acutely uncomfortable meeting, and there were a lot of questions. One of the elders actually went so far as to ask whether or not I had inserted my finger into the woman's vagina. Huh? How bizarre is that?
Anyway, just when it looked like the meeting was about to be wrapped up, questions about sexual practices between my wife and I were raised, specifically about oral and anal sex. We'd never engaged in anal sex, nor wanted to, but we had on a few occasions engaged in oral sex, mostly before the landmark Questions From Readers of December 15, 1972.
At this point, I need to explain some background for the benefit of younger readers who might be unfamiliar with WTS's evolution of thought on this matter. As far as I know, the first time the question arose of allowable sexual activities between spouses, it was the Questions From Readers of December 15, 1969.
In that ruling, the WTS gave what I think most people would regard as a sensible answer based on scripture. In a nutshell, with all of the usual and predictable caveats, they left it up to the individual conscience of husband and wife, saying, "However, beyond the above observations about conjugal acts we cannot go. With love, respect and unselfishness, marriage mates themselves must decide what they will do."
But alas, three years later, the WTS flipflopped on the matter and, with the judicious use of some genuinely creative scripture-twisting, managed to redefine fornication and adultery to include "immoral use of the genital organs in some form of intercourse." They extended the "unnatural sex" from the biblical context of homosexuality to apply to oral and anal sex between spouses. The Questions From Readers of December 15, 1972 gave married JWs the okay for a divorce if the other spouse was into "unnatural sex," and obviously, made "unnatural sex" a disfellowshipping offense, and they had the gall to conclude this gem saying, "This clearly marks a correction in the view expressed on previous occasions in the columns of this magazine, but faithful adherence to what the Scriptures actually say requires it."
They reinforced this position in the Questions From Readers of Febrary 15, 1976, saying, "Unnatural practices in connection with sex in marriage, such as oral and anal copulation, have caused some of God's people to become impure in his eyes. But The Watchtower kept above this morass of filth by alerting married couples to God's thinking on the matter." Well, where would we be without that?
Anyway, now that you have the background, let's get back to our story. So, there I was, facing the elders with my wife at my side, and admitting that we had engaged in oral sex, both before it became a disfellowshipping offense, as well as after. They grilled me hard about my attitude toward oral sex. And the truth finally came out, i.e., that my personal opinion was that the WTS had it right in 1969 and got it wrong in 1972.
Honest and sincere bloke that I am, I guess I was finding it very difficult to be truly remorseful and repentant about something that I did not honestly and sincerely believe to be wrong. I knew the Bible well enough to know that their 1972 twist was just plain wrong. And I couldn't fake it, even though I had been mostly obedient to it. One of the elders told me that I was very conceited and had an overblown opinion of own intelligence.
They decided to disfellowship me. It rocked my world. It was the most horrible feeling I'd ever had. I felt like the lowest of the low. I had no friends outside of the organization. And it came at a very bad time in my life, when I was a new father and was unemployed and struggling financially. I tried to get reinstated six months later, but they found some excuse to deny me that. I guess they needed to see me doing more groveling.
I was very discouraged by that, and stopped going to meetings at that point. My wife, for a set of reasons mostly separate from my ordeal, began having her own doubts about the WTS, and she stopped going to the meetings, too. We moved to a different city, and I no longer had any contact with any JWs. But, for some reason, I was afraid to be without the Watchtower and Awake, so I continued my subscriptions for some years, out of fear. That is in spite of the fact that I never read them. I would open the brown wrapper and unfold the magazine and place it in the stack of the other unread magazines.
Like most JWs who "fall away," I languished in limbo for a long while, and tried to avoid thinking about God and religion as much as possible. It was just too painful and disturbing. I also started attending college while working part-time, so I was keeping pretty busy.
One night I had trouble sleeping, and I started thinking about how I was disfellowshipped and the injustice of it and feeling with certainty that I did not deserve to be disfellowshipped. I decided to attack my big stack of unread Watchtowers and see if perhaps any "new light" had come out. I went through them one by one and, sure enough, there was "new light." (Otherwise known as damage control.)
It was the Questions From Readers of February 15, 1978. It was one of those very rare instances when the WTS actually admitted that it had used scriptures out of context and that it was mistaken. It went like this:
Question: "Does the Bible set forth any specific definitions as to what is moral or immoral as regards the sexual relationship between husband and wife? Is it the responsibility of congregational elders to endeavor to exercise control among congregation members in these intimate marital matters?"
"...the conclusion was reached that those engaging in such sex practices were subject to disfellowshiping if unrepentant. The view was taken that it was within the authority of congregational elders to investigate and act in a judicial capacity regarding such practices in the conjugal relationship."
"A careful further weighing of this matter, however, convinces us that, in view of the absence of clear Scriptural instruction, these are matters for which the married couple themselves must bear the responsibility before God and that these marital intimacies do not come within the province of the congregational elders to attempt to control nor to take disfellowshipping action with such matter as the sole basis."
So, I was disfellowshipped for an offense that was later determined not to be an offense. At first, I felt vindicated and joyful. After thinking about it longer, I began to feel more anger and resentment. They cut me off from my friends and family and my whole world and made me suffer. And they were wrong. And now they know that they were wrong. And I was right. Those elders are still around. They've never tried to contact me and reconcile this.
To me, this was proof enough that this organization could not possibly be "The Truth." I've been tempted at different times to contact them and request that they acknowledge the error. I think they should read a letter to the congregation saying that I was disfellowshipped in error. I've even toyed with the idea of bringing a lawsuit against them.
But then I think, what's the point? Those elders who wrongfully disfellowshipped me actually did me a huge favor. Without them, it would have been far more difficult for me to have learned the truth about "The Truth."
Those bastards only have power of you when you give them power over you. I'm not giving them power over me ever again. To hell with them.
WOW! Welcome to JWD Chad,
I had a friend tell me once that they banned oral sex due to sanitary reasons,
nj
Powerful post, Chad M. I just can't get over the stories I have been reading on here for the last 5 to 6 YEARS and what has been done to so many lives with such reverberating consequences to all concerned. Still scared silly of even posting...because family is still in....trying to extricate myself quietly and without much ado although I may just go out with a BANG eventually....
Didn't think I would ever post and with my heart racing, this is my first...
Thank you to the bravery of all those before me, and hoping to eventually give up meetings FOREVER.
After nearly swooning and going into the restroom to recover, I returned to my desk and began to read.
My, how this brings back memories. This seems to be a common reaction that many of us had. Oh, the disobedience of it all!! I thought that maybe demons might come out of the computer. They can really put such fear into people, can't they. The guilt, the guilt of it all.
On the other hand, once the first words are typed in, which in my case was Watchtower and Abuse, the floodgates opened and the sheer number of sites of "disgruntled" or "apostate" people is staggering!
Thanks for sharing .
Great thread, and welcome Newbies!
I noticed how many new ones were joining JWD recently, and started making a list of names a few days ago - it was huge! Glad to see that this site just gets more and more important and more and more effective as time goes on. It's been great to be a part of this.
Chad M - Your experience is an example of why sites like this are so effective. Your post - like so many I read when I was first coming out of the JWs, has the absolute ring of truth to it. It's the sort of thing that, as a JW, when you read it you just nod your head and say, "yeah, that's just what it's like!"
What I realized right off was that, unlike what the WTS was always saying about lying apostates, nearly all of what I read on sites like this was quite truthful and accurate. Lots of times, I came to realize rather quickly, the apostates were far more truthful than what the WTS was writing!
Thanks, newbies. Keep sharing.
S4
i was a third generation dub with a PO/assemblyO father and uncles also in prominent positions (one of whom ran the WT africa cartel). i was privy to the behind the scenes power base and the special treatment they received. i also had the advantage of a heating vent intercom in my room that allowed a full monitoring of the elders meetings held in my house. being young i didnt completely process the hypocrisy i was being exposed to but the information garnered would prove valuable later. my family jw library was extensive and at a young age i began digging into the old books and began seeing weird and contradictory things. all of these were brushed aside when i inquired about them but my curiosity was not abated. things reached a turning point when reading my nwt bible one day i came upon genesis 3:22. "And Jehovah God went on to say:"Here the man has become like one of us in knowing god and bad, and now in order that he may not put his hand out and actually take fruit also from the tree of life and eat and live to time indefinite,-" 23 With that Jehovah God put him out of the garden of eden....." i went to a (bus driver) "elder" and asked what could this possibly mean. his reply: jehovah was being sarcastic! even at the age of twelve i realized that sarcasm was not a tone used by the almighty. this was god being a vindictive dickhead. the only thing keeping man from being a god was time. this also contradicted the whole satan being a liar thing because he predicted in verse 5 of the same chapter: "....your eyes are bound to be opened and you are bound to be like god..." this was where i stopped believing in god and the bible. if the bible was truly the word of god then i wanted nothing to do with such a horrible creep! i was unable to leave at that time due to the social/family pressure that im sure all of you are all intimately familliar with, so my double life began! when i was eighteen my best friend was busted for fornicating one too many times and turned "states" evidence against me. the elders called me into a meeting and confronted me with all of the "sins" my "friend" had ratted about. however the aforementioned vent intercom had taught me the power of a bold faced denial. no i wasnt smoking. no i wasnt fornicating with my worldly girlfriend. no i wasnt smoking pot. no i wasnt shooting heroin...that one was easy because i really wasnt, my friend had thrown that fiction in for, i dont know, drama, insurance. the elders have no power over a bold faced lie so i was let off with stern looks and a warning that i was being watched. watch this, fool! i didnt set foot in one of those unholy halls until my grandmothers funeral fifteen years later and after that horrible experience i never will again. for those of you who are afraid of the backlash of leaving i say: get the hell out now! your silence is aiding and supporting an evil, soul sucking cult which destroys lives and kills/maims children. only with the support of the masses can those twisted old men in brooklyn continue their unholy acts.
btw for some reason none of the spaces i put in between paragraphs show up in my posts...sorry for the eye-straining solid block of words. any advice on how to space?
I have been here for awhile now, but I don't actually remember if I ever posted my story.
I ended up df'd and alone. Looked around to Yahoo groups for a support group to help me get reinstated - some kind of social life. After all, you end up df'd with no friends and you are not supposed to have worldly friends, what are you to do? Anyway, Roy Milton send me a copy of his book - Truth or Consequences. I talked that over with my mom (anointed sister), and she told me to get CoC.... Let me tell you, my blood pressure went up on that one!!! Touch an apostate book....... And my own mother recommended it..... So, I got it. Wow.... All the things that I had known all along, but you didn't dare talk about. From there, I started wondering what mainstream Christianity was all about and found it very very different from what the JWs say. Then I found this board. And here I am....
