RELATIONSHIPS Poll....UBM's I'm Asking You

by jgnat 24 Replies latest social relationships

twinflame

1. How did your mixed marriage happen?
a) Committed to each other knowing the other had different beliefs.
b) Your partner became a JW afterwards.
c) You left the JW's afterwards. We came in together after married and then I left it after 20+ years.
d) Other - explain!
2. Did the two of you talk about your different beliefs and how you were raised before you committed to the other? We had both been spiritully minded before marriage and had been friends for years. He studied with the JWs shortly before our marriage but never mentioned them to me. He wanted to study with them again but I felt very reserved about it. I should have stayed that way!
3. How many times a month or week (whatever is easier to describe) does spiritual subjects come up in your home? Oh gawd...it was very heated when I faded in 1999. I didn't have his level of JW 'understanding' and could not even come close to convincing him about the lies of the JWs with what I found through research. The discussions slowed down for a while but seem to have picked up again; probably since I started coming here and feel more verbal again. Just a week or so ago he said maybe it was best if we never discussed religion with each other again because it has become a very sore subject.
4. How do you relate/interact with other witnesses or congregation members? My exposure is very limited. I faded in a different area so no one really knows me here. There have been several people drop by to 'encourage' me (including a DO) but I told my husband that I would prefer that they didn't. I told him it wasn't very fair to them that I am an open apostate and they don't seem to be aware of that. I'm sure they would be apalled to know they even spoke with me.
5. Do you talk to non-JW family about your JW spouse? My friends at work are aware of my challenges and are very supportive. My children are also very understanding and supportive of my situation. Two of them are faders and the rest were never baptized.
6. Are you an "opposing mate"? Well.....I told my husband that I hate the JW religion with as much passion as I've ever had about anything in my life and that they ruin families and relationships. I have not tried to hide my feelings about the WBTS and proudly boast my apostate status. So....I guess so.
7. If you are a Christian, what are the most contentious subjects with your JW spouse? I absolutely hate the arrogance and judmentalness of the JWs in general.
8. If you are an Agnostic/Athiest, what are the most contentious subjects with your JW spouse? I really don't know what I am or what I believe anymore but almost any JW subject becomes very heated and I am very bitter towards the beliefs.
9. When/how/what made you realize your marriage/family was threatened by your spouse's JW affiliation? My husband stated (to my children) very shortly after I stopped attending meetings that he would divorce me if he ever thought I was actively opposed. I've brought that statement up several times, saying I don't know how I could be any more opposed than I am. I think in his mind he justifies his tolerance of me because he never hears me speaking to anyone else abusively about the JWs and I have never picketed an assembly. In the past, our family's relationship was very threatened when our oldest daughter was disfellowshipped and we had to shun her. When a witch hunt began for our son who had faded, I threw in the towel and said I would never again do something so unloving to my family.
10. My favorite question, anything else to add? Did I mention I hate the WBTS? This is the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. As I have stated before, I love my husband but he now tells me he loves me too but stays with me because it is the right thing to do because people in general have no moral comittment to marriage and as a Christian, he has that moral obligation. Nice, huh? Personally, I think he stays for the sex because there are no grounds for a divorce and he couldn't live without it.
carla
carla
carla

carla

oops! so sorry about the above! How did your mixed marriage happen?

b) Your partner became a JW afterwards.

2. Did the two of you talk about your different beliefs and how you were raised before you committed to the other? Yes, but he never exhibited such outrageous beliefs as the wt has.

3. How many times a month or week (whatever is easier to describe) does spiritual subjects come up in your home? hard to say, depends how things are going in general I guess.

4. How do you relate/interact with other witnesses or congregation members? I don't. I don't really care to associate with people who have such disrespect for marriage and the vows one has made.

5. Do you talk to non-JW family about your JW spouse? yes

6. Are you an "opposing mate"? yes

7. If you are a Christian, what are the most contentious subjects with your JW spouse? This could fill a book. They don't believe Jesus is Jesus but an angel, the fds is not the fds, the elders do not have any scriptural reason to micromanage a persons life, they do not understand what grace is, or salvation for that matter, paradise earth hogwash from the wt, everyone else will be destroyed, everyone else are sinners (they are not because they don't 'intentionally sin' whatever that means) they cannot explain 1914 or why Jesus would choose Russell/Rutherford in 1919, flip flops, new light, God stays the same except in jw land, When all else fails a jw will start to get hopping mad and say something like, 'what I suppose you believe in hellfire, trinity, and the earth being destroyed? And go on to list the various sins of the evil empire of Christendom like the Crusades, war, pollution, etc... Yet, they are unwilling to 'lay down their life' for a brother or another human being or pick up trash, or even recycle, or feed the poor, clothe the poor, visit the elderly and widows, etc... you all know the list.

8. If you are an Agnostic/Athiest, what are the most contentious subjects with your JW spouse?

9. When/how/what made you realize your marriage/family was threatened by your spouse's JW affiliation? When they asked him to sneak out of the house to see them.

10. My favorite question, anything else to add? Sometimes I think when a jw spouse says they love you, it is only as far as the org will allow them. There is no 'safety' anymore. They stay because they are told they 'should'. Yet, if there was some loophole out, would they take it? What if the elders decide you (the ubm) are a 'spiritual endangerment' to them? It's always there. It is never just the two of you anymore, there is always a whole cong right along with you, wherever that may be.

xjwms

I just can't stop rereading all of this
I stopped meetings, she still goes. However, it is so less than it used to be, last week someone asked at the meeting
Have you been sick, or, on vacation? duh, ... no one called to say , " I miss you "
tetrapod...So much of what you write ...IS ME
Gawd... I might have to take a break, with some of this... My eyes are getting wider.
TD

1. How did your mixed marriage happen?
a) Committed to each other knowing the other had different beliefs.
b) Your partner became a JW afterwards.
c) You left the JW's afterwards.
d) Other - explain!
"C"
2. Did the two of you talk about your different beliefs and how you were raised before you committed to the other?
We discussed our upbringngs, but (in our innocence) we pretty much took it for granted that our beliefs would always coincide.
3. How many times a month or week (whatever is easier to describe) does spiritual subjects come up in your home?
Well I'm using a fairly broad definition of "spiritual subjects," (Anything to do with religion) but I think an honest average would be about twice a week.
4. How do you relate/interact with other witnesses or congregation members?
The last time I attended a JW meeting was so many years and congregations ago that interaction is minimal. The few times it does happen, her fellow JW's seemed to regard me as "fresh meat." My daughter watches this go on and I have to be careful not to catch her eye, else we'll both burst out laughing.
5. Do you talk to non-JW family about your JW spouse?
Sometimes. Once in a great while, I commiserate with my sister. (She understands religiously mixed marriages, having been in one herself.)
6. Are you an "opposing mate"?
Depends on how you look at it --Certainly not in the sense of opposing her JW activities. At the same time though, I strongly disagree with the JW organization on a number of topics, which to JW's, does qualify as "opposition."
7. If you are a Christian, what are the most contentious subjects with your JW spouse?
8. If you are an Agnostic/Athiest, what are the most contentious subjects with your JW spouse?
My wife never argues and absolutely refuses to be drawn into any argument --ever. If she even thinks a conversation is headed that direction, she either clams up or changes the subject and refuses to revisit it, sometimes for months at a time.
I think the most "potentially contentious" subjects (Judging by the degree which they are avoided) are those that concern overt wrongdoing committed by the JW organization and its representatives.
9. When/how/what made you realize your marriage/family was threatened by your spouse's JW affiliation?
The birth of our child
10. My favorite question, anything else to add?
I think extended JW family can be especially detrimental to the spousal relationship of a UBM. It's good to know what they are up to and better to keep them at a polite distance when it becomes necessary
Why Georgia

1. How did your mixed marriage happen?
d) Other - explain!
I met my husband on the internet. We talked for 3 months then met in person. We spent 3 weeks together, he went home for one week packed his stuff and we've been together ever since...8 years. He didn't tell me he had even been raised as a JW until we had already been livng together for 3 months. Then a lot of things made sense...!!! LOL!!! He told me he had been away for a long time and didn't think he would ever go back. I believed him. We lived together for 2 years, got pregnant, got married and the weekend we came home from getting married - a month and a half before our first son was born he decided to go back to the meetings and start studying again. I went with him until I started researching the JW's because what they taught me in my bible studies didn't match up with what I had been taught growing up.
2. Did the two of you talk about your different beliefs and how you were raised before you committed to the other?
We talked about everything when he finally told me he had been raised a JW. Before that we were just completely in love with eachother. He had left out the whole religion thing and I just thought he was moral but not into religion. Thinking back I wasn't too smart! I had been completely honest with how I was raised
3. How many times a month or week (whatever is easier to describe) does spiritual subjects come up in your home?
It comes up almost daily. We talk about JW's, Catholics, Mormons, Christian Scientists...Politics. We are very avid followers of the news and world events.
4. How do you relate/interact with other witnesses or congregation members?
My husbands JW family are wacko's and we have nothing to do with them. Some JW's are nice but alot are just too nosy. I only see them when they knock on my door, the supermarket, mall, or at a death in my husbands family. Mostly they don't recognize me anymore because I lost almost 200 pounds.
5. Do you talk to non-JW family about your JW spouse?
Yes of course! But not in a non-respectful way. Mainly to explain to them why we may or may not do or teach our children certain things.
6. Are you an "opposing mate"?
MOST DEFINATELY!!!!
7. If you are a Christian, what are the most contentious subjects with your JW spouse?
I was Jewish when I met my husband....but now I am a Messianic Jewish Agnostic Atheist..Don't Ask!
8. If you are an Agnostic/Athiest, what are the most contentious subjects with your JW spouse?
N/A
9. When/how/what made you realize your marriage/family was threatened by your spouse's JW affiliation?
When I was giving birth to my first son and the elders showed up at the hospital because I needed a blood transfusion...this is when I realized my life might be threatened by my husbands beliefs. When our first pediatrician treated us like freaks because of my husbands religious beliefs and told us that they would take us to court if we ever opposed the medical treatment prescribed...I thought that his religion might be a problem in our life. When the Elders treated me like I was stupid for asking reasonable questions - I really figured out our life might be impacted by his religion. When the Elders sent my husband out into service with a single beautiful sister and repeated that she would make a good wife and mother...I knew I had to take action!
10. My favorite question, anything else to add?
I think that these polls should be composed into a file for the people that show up every week on this board saying...boo hoo - I'm dating a Jehovahs Witness - what should I do! I can't even stand to read those threads any longer....!
ithinkisee

OK. I'll pretend I am still "under the radar":
1. How did your mixed marriage happen?
c) You left the JW's afterwards.
Cognitive dissonance and loyalty to my mom and my family were a constant battle.
2. Did the two of you talk about your different beliefs and how you were raised before you committed to the other?
n/a
3. How many times a month or week (whatever is easier to describe) does spiritual subjects come up in your home?
All the time when we were both "in". Once I made the mental break though, I would only bring it up to "test the waters" or to lay down some info that I wanted to have planted already when the big showdown came (that way I wouldn't have to explain certain things - I would only have to reference them: "Remember when I found that book that said [insert point]?" or "Remember when we were talking about [insert topic] and you said [insert statement]. Additionally, my wife seemed to only bring it up to see what the hell was up with me.
4. How do you relate/interact with other witnesses or congregation members?
The fake friendships have always bothered me. I have always had a hard time with the hypocrisy, and it was the last few years I realized it was not just specific to my one little congregation. I think being a Bethelite for awhile helped me to see that.
5. Do you talk to non-JW family about your JW spouse?
Before I told my wife I wanted out of the JWs, I had spoken to several non-JW relatives about my decision to leave. Was trying to make a support network in case I was cast out and destitute. Also told some of her non-JW family because I knew it would be an issue.
6. Are you an "opposing mate"?
Thankfully no. I grew up with a dad who was labeled an opposing mate though. He was subtley and not-so-subtley labeled as Satan by my mother and her new insta-friends at the hall.
7. If you are a Christian, what are the most contentious subjects with your JW spouse?
One of the things I am still amazed at is how far removed from first century christianity the JWs actually are. Whether or not christianity in general is "the truth" or not - some of the JWs worst lies come from their claims to being just like the first century christians.
8. If you are an Agnostic/Athiest, what are the most contentious subjects with your JW spouse?
n/a
9. When/how/what made you realize your marriage/family was threatened by your spouse's JW affiliation?
When I realized the only reason I was in it was to keep my family together.
GoingGoingGone

1. How did your mixed marriage happen?
c) You left the JW's afterwards.
2. Did the two of you talk about your different beliefs and how you were raised before you committed to the other?
n/a
3. How many times a month or week (whatever is easier to describe) does spiritual subjects come up in your home?
Depends what part of the rollercoaster we happen to be on. Sometimes, we'll go weeks. At the present time, several times a day.
4. How do you relate/interact with other witnesses or congregation members?
I hide. I've been avoiding them, because the current trend seems to be to ask what they can do to help me spiritually. One of my very best friends has been avoiding me. I don't know why that bothers me so much, because I have honestly been avoiding her, too, since she expressed her desire to sit me down and talk.
5. Do you talk to non-JW family about your JW spouse?
I do not talk to his non-JW family about him. I feel like that would put them in an awkward situation. I have told my sister and my father, both of whom are df'd, that I am not going to meetings and do not want to be a JW anymore. My father immediately asked what my husband says about that... I told him he wasn't happy about it. My father pretty much told me that I better figure out how to 'fix' things with my husband, since I'm the one who changed the rules. (I just love supportive family.) So I don't talk to him, either.
6. Are you an "opposing mate"?
No. In fact, I tell my kids that they should cooperate with their father when it comes to meetings and service. I support him in what he wants to do. I just expect the same treatment in return.
7. If you are a Christian, what are the most contentious subjects with your JW spouse?
My lack of desire to be a JW anymore makes him angry. His refusal to listen to my reasons for that decision frustrates me.
8. If you are an Agnostic/Athiest, what are the most contentious subjects with your JW spouse?
n/a
9. When/how/what made you realize your marriage/family was threatened by your spouse's JW affiliation?
When I first told him that I had serious doubts, probably about a year and a half ago, he told me that he didn't know me anymore, that I was not the same person he married. Other things he's said and done/not done makes me wonder sometimes if he's preparing to cut his losses and leave me - although other times I think I'm just overly sensitive right now. Realizing that some JWs will divorce their spouse for 'spiritual endangerment' shook me up, too.
10. My favorite question, anything else to add?
I have always been the kind of person who just wants everyone to get along... be happy... kiss and make up. I have no problem being flexible with my own desires in order to make that happen. My leaving the WT, however, is not something that I'm willing to be flexible on, no matter how much I rock the boat. And since this is out of character for me, my husband doesn't know what to do with me. I understand that he's upset, that he's dealing with a difficult situation. But so am I. I feel like I am in the twilight zone... I can't believe all this is happening. I can't believe that my marriage could be threatened by this. I can't believe that I could lose every friend I've ever had. I need to get past the denial stage, plant myself firmly in reality and deal with it. Easier said than done, I'm afraid.

RELATIONSHIPS Poll....UBM's I'm Asking You

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