smily
I'll try to condence my story. I've been married 27 years....never been a JW, married to a 3rd gen JW
I was a nonJW male who at age 18 befriended a female JW 16 (friend of a family member). We had a strictly platonic friendship for two years, until her mother read her diary describing her feelings for me. Her parents stepped in and put an end to the friendship, we were at the time 20 and 18. She moved away, I moved away...I called her about a year later out of the blue. She asked me to come visit her. The relationship turned more than platonic...we got married six months later. During most of our marriage my wife was not an everyday practicing JW.....far from it.....so you would figure that the JW religion couldn't possibly have an effect on our marriage, right ? Wrong.
She was still raised a certain way and with certain JW beliefs. Even though she may not have consciously realized it, she still carried many of the same JW beliefs into her role as a parent.
The things that have caused MAJOR arguements between us as parents : attending church, celebrating holidays, kids participating in sports, kids participating in other activities, our social life with other couples, our roles as parents, whose family was nuttier her JW or my nonJW, on and on...blah, blah, blah.
On top of that, we moved 1200 miles away from her JW parents. Five years later they moved down the street. Her JW mother has tried everything ih her power to convert our kids including constantly going behind our backs and badmouthing us as parents.
My point is this...you not only have a relationship with the person, but also their family. If their family is also JW, then even if your mate is not practicing, then there is still an enormous influence.
When I got married, I never thought that I would argue with my mate about whether or not my kids would play little league baseball or HS football or celebrate holidays.
3 words of advice THINK THINGS THROUGH.
