Help - am I on the fence??

wantstoleave

Please bear with me, newbie here :)

I have had doubts for a few years now. I was raised in the truth, baptised at 16, married at 24...the usual stuff. My marriage was quite hellish to be honest, and then the unthinkable happened, my husband left me with 2 children over a year ago now. As far as the elders tell me, he still attends meetings etc - in another country.

Now, besides it being a horrid year or so, Ive been fighting inner turmoil regards the truth. When husband left, the elders and cong were so helpful and nice. I appreciate all they did to help me. However, I have not been regular at meetings for months now, and have had no shepherding calls. Ive been out witnessing twice in a year. My parents and sister are baptised witnesses. My brother is inactive and living with his fiance.

This is my dilemma and where I wonder how on the fence I am. I doubt the truth is the truth sometimes. Sometimes I wonder if theres a god, HOW could there be? But then how did the earth come about? Being a JW gives us logical explanation for creation etc. BUT, how can every other religion be wrong? How come WE have the truth? Why JW's? And then, IF the end does come, and my jerk off husband makes it through....I dont want him getting our kids, because he's not bothered to contact us at all in over a year. So if I were to die at armageddon, if it came, I wouldnt want my kids going to him. Lol....sound silly? Sorry. I just worry.

Then even if I leave the truth, my parents and sister wont be able to talk to me, yet they are SO much a part of my life. I guess the only thing keeping me 'in' at the moment is 1 - not losing my family and 2 - not letting my ex have the upper hand! If I leave, he can play the 'she isnt a witness' card.

Help please! I need to sort these thoughts out :( And if I talk to my parents about it, they'll only fret. They have lost one child to the world already and dont want to lose another....

BabaYaga

It is not easy, but it is worth it.

You are in the right place.

A loving creator would not punish a child who asks questions and uses his or her own mind.

It all gets better AND easier. You'll just have to trust us on that one. Almost all of us who post here have been where you are right now.

You will see how wonderful unconditional love can be.

Take a deep breath... and keep reading.

Love to you,
Baba.

wantstoleave

Thanks Baba ((hugs))....I will :)

alanv

wantsotoleave, the one thing you can do when you spend less time with the org is to check it out properly yourself. You call it the truth. When you do your own research on the org you will find it is anything but the truth. Many on this site simply left because they could no longer live a lie. The whole idea that a loving creator is about to slaughter over 6,000,000,000 people because of one man's mistake is frankly stupid. It can be hard to make that decision to leave but so worth it. You will find a whole new life opens up to you. Good luck

wantstoleave

Hi Alan...yeh, sorry about 'the truth' bit....you'll have to excuse me...its ingrained after almost 30yrs of being in 'it'.

Everytime I go to research, I get 'the guilts'. I do sense that my parents think they're slowly losing me though. But today I probably shocked them by going to a meeting. Hadnt been in months! So they probably think Im back on track again. If only they knew...

Hopscotch

Hi wantstoleave

I know where you're at - as Baba Yagu says most of us have been there and done that.

Just take your time and be patient and gentle with yourself. You don't need to figure it all out at once. Things will become clearer to you the more you read and then take some quiet time to think about what your learning. And as Baba Yagu says trust us - it will get better. You have been a witness for 30 years so it's a huge thing in your life to break free of it. It takes time to learn to trust your own thinking after having had an organisation doing it for you all your life. And what you think of as your conscience is most likely the guilt and fear that has been programmed and brainwashed into you to keep blindly following the directives of this organisation. I was a JW for over 40 years (from the age of 5) and my husband was an elder. Both our families are staunch JWs. But we gradually listened to the doubts and alarm bells that were going off in our head and eventually woke up to the lies that we had been told all our life. We have faded away from the organisation over the last 3 years or so and are still reading and learning about life and what it's all about.

Best wishes

Hopscotch

jookbeard

use the search facility on this forum to slowly look at the various dogma that the WTS presents as truth and you will slowly find out the WTS is a false prophet and an Apostate, if possible you may want to purchase 2 excellent pieces of work from Mr Ray Franz on Commentary Press, FreeMInds.Org is a very good start, even a trip to your local library and find a good bookshop in town, I would cease all Field Service activity now if I was you, purely we would not want you to be inadvertently leaving WTS materials on the unsuspecting members of the public, the WTS destroys lives, and has bloodshed on it's hands with it's murderous blood ban enforcement. Good luck.

MissingLink

Forget your ex, and everyone else. As a parent you're #1 priority is doing the right thing for your kids, no matter how hard that may be for you. Now is the time to do your homework and determine if the JWs are god's sole channel of communication with humans (or even if there is a god). Learn about the watchtower's claims, their "proofs" that they were chosen by Jesus in 1919. Once you look at things objectively you should easily see the pattern of lies in the publications, and it falls apart pretty quickly once you take away their information control.

Don't let the kids grow up to be stuck in the same trap you find yourself in now. The real world isn't nearly as scary as you've been led to believe.

Black Sheep

Hi wantstoleave. Welcome to the forum.

I would suggest that you stay sitting on the fence until you have a plan.

One thing most of us have in common is that we express our doubts to the wrong people at the wrong time. All of a sudden we realise that our families have alienated us for sounding like apostates and further discussion of our doubts with them is damned near impossible.

You make it sound like your family is likely to be one that shuns it's ex-members. If they weren't like that, then no problem. If they are, and you don't want to lose them, you need to make a plan.

One option is the slow fade.

Another is to take your family out with you. This is really tricky, but not impossible. To do it, you must still be in good standing so that they will talk to you. You may have to consider going to more meetings so that they put their guard down a bit.

Now you have to gently, gently, gently, gently, get them to try to answer your doubts. Try not to pick away at their myriad of doctrines. The most important doctrine is that Jesus selected them to be God's sole channel of communication to mankind in the year 1919. Do you believe that? If not, why not? How do they arrive at 1919? Does it make sense? Is the numerology they use to arrive at the date contradicted by secular evidence? If it is, why?

This doctrine is very important because you can spend hours showing a JW why the Bible doesn't support WT doctrine and they will go away unconvinced because............ 'The WT was selected by Jesus, in 1919, to be God's sole channel of communication to mindkind in our day.' Therefore they cannot be wrong.

Belief in that doctrine is not negotiable, it is not a concience matter.

Many JWs will pull out the old, "Where else do you go?" line of reasoning. Don't let them get away with it.

The question is, 'If it is true, what should you do?' and conversely, and probably even more importantly....

...... If it is false, what should you do?

Please remember to ask any question in such a way that they feel obligated to answer it.

Only ever cover ONE subject at one time. It takes me extreme concentration not to go off like a scatter gun and drown them in stuff, but I have learned that it simply makes things worse and then you have to try and undo the damage.

Keep them on the subject. They have a hundred ways of doing it and they all work well. Tell them you will discuss that subject AFTER they have answered YOUR question.

Whether you are trying a fade or an extraction you will need a lot of patience. Either might take years. If you are lucky, your parents might have been hiding their doubts for years and it could be all over in no time.

If you need help, pop in here and ask.

Good luck

Chris

wantstoleave

Wow thanks :)

I could've gone with the slow fade had my husband not walked out...we hadnt been to meetings in about 4yrs. Then when he left, my dad insisted on calling the elders and getting them involved. Yes they were loving and helpful, but it made me feel like I had to 'repay' them and attend meetings. Funnily enough, turned out my husband had left the country and in his new country started attending meetings! Go figure. How hypocritical is that? Anyway, I kept up the meetings for about 6mths solidly. Everyone kept saying Jehovah was blessing me. The last 6mths Ive faded again. I did go to 1 day of the convention however, to appease my mum.

My parents are not the type to go out. My dad, though chronically ill, is very zealous. He grew up catholic and has been a witness since he was about 24. He has great hopes in the new system, because he has been an unwell man for so long....and the hope of a perfect life keeps him going. I love my parents dearly. I dont want to see them hurt. I know how my brother leaving has hurt them and continues to hurt them. I guess Ive always done things to make others happy. Ive never done anything for ME. Now is no different. Im still thinking of others *sigh*

And Jook, dont worry...havent been witnessing in close to a year :)

Help - am I on the fence??

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