Thinkers wife

thinker

Thanks for the support. It is very hard after having been raised as a witness, to strike out and make new friends. And my family refuses to accept my new husband. Who is very supportive.

Hi thinker
Me and my wife have found that making friends has been the hardest thing - being raised a witness kind of makes you socially inept and the ingrained suspicion of those not 'in the truth' doesn't help either.
BTW: Was this supposed to be a reply to another post?
If so, you need to press the Post Reply button

RedhorseWoman

TW, I think you should give your husband a very big hug. He is a special person by wanting to learn about your struggle and being supportive.

Years in the WTBTS can certainly scar a person and make every aspect of life difficult. It helps to be able to talk about things with those who understand.

thinker

Thanks Redhorsewoman.
I hug my husband everyday.

thinker

Thank you Simon, my husband helped me with this one. Actually I am very socially capable. Just hard to meet people.

Carmel

Hey you guys, what's so hard about making friends? seems so many of you say the same thing when the exit door from Jdumbism bats you in the butt! I guess I was blessed to take the "spiritual off-ramp" as a teenager, more socially flexible and willing to take a chance with "worldly people".

carmel who attracts flies cause he smells like his goats

waiting

Carmel,

You fool. What makes you think you have friends? I think I have friends, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. My first husband had lots of friends - as long as he was buying the beer. You're leaving the WTBTS early probably has a lot to do with your making friends & acquaintenances easily - oh, and your lovability.

Some of us have been complete stand-offs to anyone outside the cong. Not even going to lunch, let alone invite someone over to our house for coffee/dinner/cards/party/movie. We never would accept an invitation from a "worldly person" either for the same. We have the capabilities - but lots of us have no social skills with persons we shunned for a lifetime as belonging to Satan.

It's hard to see them as friends, buddies, etc. I've worked with car salesmen for 30 yrs - I can jaw with the best of them. But to ask them and their wives to dinner - a new experience that I don't know how to handle yet. Just different.

I went to a social gathering on Thanksgiving Day with worldly people for the first time. Thankfully, my jawin' ability helped me. The people were just like the people within the congregation. Nice, chatted, teenagers took digs at other teenagers. They were normal.
They knew our background as jw's - and that we had refused all their invitations for almost 10 years (being spiritually mature as we were). The worldly persons were completely friendly and gracious, and invited us back. Will wonders never cease.

But it's hard. Some of us are still trying to find a graceful way to contact worldly family that we and our jw family have shunned because they wouldn't become jw's. We don't know if they'll be as graceful to us as we were cold to them. And we know these hard situations are of our own making, or our parents.

Nice to see you so chatty, Carmel. Guess your rested up after your travels?

waiting

Edited by - waiting on 15 December 2000 13:45:39

Carmel

hey whenever, I'm not chatty, just got a case of verbal diarhhia! still on the road but making a touch and go landing at number one son's home in portland, or. will be in Seattle manana and on the big bird to tel aviv sunday. It must be the change in time zone... actually its a dsln line that works great and i can bs faster than electrons can revolve...

carmel

waiting

Hey Thinker & Thinker's Wife,

Nice to have you here. Am I confused? You, thinker, are the wife of a jw-born-into-it. You are like the majority of us here - very doubtful of your life's spiritual course at this point? You are a woman?

Well, even if I have it wrong (unlike MENSA RED), welcome - nice to have you here.

We've got a neat meet&greet thread going "Hello? Hello? Hello?" where we are all learning a little about each other on one easy-to-read thread (for us illiterates). Please take the time to go on over - and learn about us. If you'd like, please post there a little/lot about yourself. We're all pretty much in the same boat - except Carmel. He jumped shipped a loooong time ago.

Welcome.

confused waiting

RedhorseWoman

(sigh) Waiting....now listen closely. Thinker is not a JW....never was. Thinker is a man, and is married to Thinker's Wife....who was a JW, but who is now inactive.

Now, who lives in the yellow house? (oops, sorry....it's just that this started to sound like one of those neat little logic puzzles....you know "the juggler lives in the green house", "Mary is not a juggler"....etc.)

Thinkers wife

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