by jambon1 40 Replies latest jw friends
Yes!
I got to the point where I was coming home from the Sunday morning meeting and going straight to bed to sleep off what had got me so tense and stressed out. Only looking back do I realise how close I was to cracking up completely. I had always been 'at the center' of congregation, involved in all aspects, elder, on the building committee. Then suddenly treated by dirt in a congregation that had been my life for years.
Yes. I was actually there before I left, I went into passive observer mode before completely leaving.
j
I am in passive mode now - I don't refuse anything, but don't volunteer for anything now either. I am a total slacker in the hall now - although I am still regular at the meetings, I don't do a whole lot. It keeps the peace in the house until the kids are a little older, then I will be more forthright with my "fade"
'Lady Lee' thats a very sad story and i really feel for you. But please is your below quote 100% true? Is this based on scripture? Because i find this totally unfair and unjust of the WT to impose such a thing if this is the case.
The WTS tells women that if they are not providing the "due" then it is the woman who is responsible if he has sex with someone else
LFCV
'Lady Lee' thats a very sad story and i really feel for you. But please is your below quote 100% true? Is this based on scripture? Because i find this totally unfair and unjust of the WT to impose such a thing if this is the case.
The WTS tells women that if they are not providing the "due" then it is the woman who is responsible if he has sex with someone elseLFCV
Yes it is. As far back as the 50's the WTS was talking about the "due" and how it was a responsiblity. There are several points that contribute to the above
[Paul said] "Now concerning the things about which you wrote, it is well for a man not to have intercourse with a woman; yet, because of prevalence of fornication, let each man have his own wife and each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render to his wife her due; but let the wife also do likewise to her husband. The wife does not exercise authority over her own body, but her husband does; likewise, also, the husband does not exercise authority over his own body, but his wife does. Do not be depriving each other of it, except by mutual consent for an appointed time, that you may devote time to prayer and may come together again, that Satan may not keep tempting you for your lack of self-regulation. However, I say this by way of concession, not in the way of an order."—1 Cor. 7:1-7, NW.
This scripture is used to show a duty to perform on request. A truly loving husband would not use this to force sex-on-demand. An abusive one, however, thinks this gives him power to exert his God-given right.
In my case even a doctor's orders to abstain from sexual relations due to a high risk pregnancy and the high possiblity of the baby being born too soon. His right to the "due" came before the safety of his unborn child.
2. A second part of this includes the acceptable reasons for terminating a marriage.
The Jewish Pharisees once tested [Jesus] him with this question: "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife on every kind of grounds?" .
13 "In reply he said: ‘Did you not read that he who created them at the beginning made them male and female and said: "For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will stick to his wife, and the two will be one flesh"? So that they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore, what God has yoked together let no man put apart.’ They said to him: ‘Why, then, did Moses prescribe giving a certificate of dismissal and divorcing her?’ He said to them: ‘Moses, out of regard for your hardheartedness, made the concession to you of divorcing your wives, but such has not been the case from the beginning. I say to you that whoever divorces his wife except on the grounds of fornication and marries another commits adultery.’" (Matt. 19:3-9, NW) "When again in the house the disciples began to question him concerning this. And he said to them: ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if ever a woman, after divorcing her husband, marries another, she commits adultery.’" (Mark 10:10-12, NW) "Everyone that divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery, and he that marries a woman divorced from a husband commits adultery."—Luke 16:18, NW.
So there are two acceptable reasons for divorce: death and adultery. Getting a legal divorce would not negate the spiritual marriage. if one or the other did get the legal divorce, neither would be free to remarry and maintain their standing in front of Jehovah aka the WTS.
Now, in my case, my elder husband had a job where in the summer he often was confronted with almost naked women who were sunbathing in their backyards. On those days he came home needing (in his words) sex. He was too weak to resist and the only way he would not sin and break his marriage vows was if he got sex that night. (doesn't that make a wife feel all lovey-dovey?) Knowing how he was I knew that if we were to divorce he would not be able to control those urges. And eventually he would commit adultery. Which brings me to my next point.
3. Blood-guilt
I can't find this right now but the principle was that if a witness A did something to cause witness B to be stumbled then witness A would be responsible for the loss of that person's standing and possible life.
My husband used this argument regularly. If I refused him and he went out to commit adultery or if I legally divorced him and left him in a situation where he could not remarry scripturally and he had sex with someone then I would be bloodguilty for his sin. And like I said earlier - I believed him.
So I was back with my 2 options. As a survivor of childhood abuse I already carried a heavy load of responsibility for the actions of others (I know better now) Death or adultery. I know somewhere in the back of my head there was the thought that if I commited adultery I might be able to eventually become approved again. If I was dead that was it. I even felt guilty for having that thought.
It's been over 20 years and I'm OK now. In fact I haven't thought of suicide at all since I left in spite of how hurting I was from all the years of abuse.
Interestingly when his mother died recently I sent him my condolences in an email. He called me and we spoke for a while and at one point said he forgave me for the adultery. I was rendered speechless which doesn't often happen to me He will never "get" it But that is no longer my problem
Yes,,I felt the same as the other posters on this thread. I would feel sick to my stomach attending meetings and going out in field service was impossible..I couldn't give talks on the school anymore and they removed me from the talk roster as I was always feeling too sick to give talks when I was scheduled to. The last time we went was the summer District assembly 1986 ,My husband and I couldn't stomach listening to the same nonsense they were talking about and we walked out and never came back..
not sure if this counts: I couldn't stomach looking at the 2 elders that came on a welcoming visit and said horrible, unchristian things to me.
I showed up 2 months later at the Memorial on 3 gin/tonics...........I was soooooooo pissed off at the lack of love.......
so yeah...remembering that...maybe I was slightly mental...
I still have anger too..........
Codeblue
I'm happy to hear you are a survivor Lady Lee. What a sad history you've had.
Yes. I was in a numb state before I left. Just went through the motions. Felt it was of no use as I could never do enough or be "good" enough for Jehovah. I got to the point that I felt like the life was being sucked out of me. It was like sitting there in a fog and I didn't care to associate after the meetings. Just wanted to get out of there. I believe your brain and emotions just start shutting down to protect you.
Came out and the stress was relieved for a period of time, but then I felt very guilty and then crashed into clinical depression to the point of suicide. Got help. And went on meds.
And that's the short story. Hopefully these posts will help people to recognize these signs that you are in a bad way mentally and you need help. All of the praying in the world and meeting attendance will never help you. Elders and others may mean well, but they are not trained in mental health. By them telling you that these will help you only adds to the illness.
Juni
I had a sort-of nervous breakdown in the Spring of 2001. I went through a period of about three or 4 days where I couldn't eat, couldn't work, had cold chills, legs (and mind) running at 100 mph when I tried to sleep. I ended up staying at my sister's house most of the time because I felt like I would go completely crazy if I was alone for any length of time.
That was when I started entertaining serious thoughts of leaving. At first I my plan was to be a walkaway believer, you know, I'd tell people that I believed in JWism but that I didn't practice it. But I couldn't imagine living with such a "I'm a failure" mental state all the time, waiting for the big A to come and be among the slaughtered. Suicide crossed my mind, but I didn't want to 'bring reproach'.
So I kept going to meetings that summer and into the fall, but it became more and more of a plastic act. I was especially turned off by the DC drama that year, the "Korah" drama as I think it's come to be known. I slept through the most of rest of the program. JWism had ceased to inspire any kind of enthusiasm in me whatsoever, and this panicked me - where else am I going to go?
Around September of that year I had a relationship with a girl from work. I got to know her in the biblical sense, and promptly confessed it to the elders. I wasn't DF'd, I heard them talking for a long time when I was outside of the room they were deliberating in, I got the feeling that one of the elders was pushing hard for DF and the other was inclined in the other direction. They came out and brought me back in the room and told me that they had decided on private reproof. So my "privileges" were taken away.
I stopped attending meetings shortly after because I was too embarrassed about not being able to participate in the TMS or being able to give comments, two things that I was known for. By this time I had gained some mental stability back, and I really didn't miss the meetings. The rest is history, here I am.
*****I had a sort-of nervous breakdown in the Spring of 2001. I went through a period of about three or 4 days where I couldn't eat, couldn't work, had cold chills, legs (and mind) running at 100 mph when I tried to sleep. I ended up staying at my sister's house most of the time because I felt like I would go completely crazy if I was alone for any length of time.*****
wow Dan. that was pretty much me exactly. it was surreal. I was floating and time kind of stood still. I didn't know if it was day or night unless I stopped and really focused for a moment or two. I never knew what to call it but I would say a nervous breakdown was a good way to describe it.
