When I met my husband he was 45 years of age and had been disfellowshipped around the age of 15. He left home aged 25 and moved over 100 miles away from his parents.
However, his mother used to sometimes visit and interfered and got him reinstated very much against his wishes. Therefore, when I met he was attending the KH and the Group Study as much as his shift work allowed. He had gone out on FS occasionally but never handed in a report.
When he met me his mother warned him off because I was not a JW however he stuck to his guns and said he didnt want to be alone anymore. I started attending the KH with him in 2003 prior to our marriage in March 2004. At first I was very interested but quickly saw the flaws in what they preached and taught. It was during these conversations that my husband said that he had never wanted to be reinstated in the first place.
We kept attending the meetings as his shifts allowed to keep his mother happy. His parents are quite demanding in us visiting them so we began only visiting on a Sunday which meant us and them missing meetings. Although husband was off during the week I was at work and Saturday traffic where we used to live and where they live was horrendous hence the Sunday visit. This was the beginnning of our fade. Another factor was that the Elder from our book study group said we had to attend another Group. This was further away and my husband said we had no chance of getting there by 7.30pm as the traffic where we used to live at the time of day was impossible so we never attended the new Group. Therefore our old group thought we have moved groups the new group never missed us as we never started going there. This was the start of our fade.
In 2007 I had to give up work and I had surgery in April 2007 which meant I couldn't attend meetings at all for six weeks and wasn't to be left alone in the house. As we didn't live near any family and friends this meant my husband couldn't attend meetings either. We resumed going to meetings following the six weeks on our usual sporadic basis.
Our KH has three meetings each Sunday which they rotate so each congregation gets two years at the same time. We had 10 o'clock, 1pm and 4pm meetings. We were going at 10 a.m. in 2007 but in January 2009 when our congregation was moved to 1pm we continued to go at 10 0'clock as this suited us better regarding family sometimes coming over on a Sunday for a roast.
Therefore, if we saw anyone or someone from our group phoned to see where we were we were able to say that we went to a different meeting. Our congregation was very small but the one we went to instead always had a full hall so it was unlikely whether we were noticed there or not if the Elders from our congregation asked those Elders. Eventually we stopped attending, I think the last meeting we went to was November 2008.
However, sometime last year an elderly lady from the congregation kept calling on us.
I hardly every answered the door as we never had surprise visitors so unless I was expecting a parcel I used to ignore the door and sometimes saw JWs doing their normal FS most of whom probably didn't know which house in the Close was ours. However, this old lady used to often call around 8.45 a.m, when our blinds and curtains were still shut and she knew full well my husband worked shifts. It was every two to three weeks or so.
However, we moved out of our house in February this year but had reason to go back prior to the new people moving in and I found a tract that she had put through the door. My husband said there was some significance in the fact that she had written "Mr & Mrs Little Imp" rather then our first names in the note she wrote on it.
We are dying to know whether she has worked it out that we have moved yet or not since she only came round on weekdays and the new people would always be at work then. The only other way she may know is if MIL has told an Elders wife she befriended in that congregation who would have to tell her husband who may mention it to this old lady. This particular Elder's wife never goes to meetings.
Sorry this is long winded but this is how it happened.
LI
