by junebug_11 100 Replies latest social relationships
Hello JuneBug, I'm not a JW but I am an unbaptised publisher, still "studying".Not a JW background.
I'm also a mother. I think it would be very, vary hard to fiind that my instinct to care for my children and bring them up in the way I thought best was challenged.
This thread has made me think a great deal.
Hi Junebug,
Thanks for your post. I was raised as a JW from the age of 8 when my father and step mother converted and for the sake of your young child please please please make sure of what you're getting your little one into.
I never formed a relationship with my father because of his activity in the organization on top of his regular job. He was always busy busy busy. He always had a talk to prepare and give. He always had a bible study with someone he had to prepare for and go to. He went out in service every moment he could. He had responsibilities to the congregation he was in that took up time as well. He was a good JW but a terrible father that I could not relate to. Any conversations I tried to have with him turned into him teaching me about Jehovah and always included a scripture. I could never just talk to my father. He was buried and dead under his beliefs as a Jehovah's Witness. Literally, I would try to talk to him about working out and exercising, which he loved before he became a JW, and he would talk about how bodily training is beneficial for little but exercising our hearts and minds for Jehovah were beneficial for a lot. I miss my father. I do not know this cyborg that replaced him.
The religion requires parents to have a weekly personal one-on-one bible study with their children on top of preparing ahead of time for each meeting. Do you want your young child's growing mind and heart to be molded into this cult's thinking?
For myself, I was left with guilt for not doing enough for God. Emotionally, I was devestated. Even at 25 yrs of age and having left this cult, I feel disconnected from the world around me which I'm going to therapy to work on. I'm just now going to school. I was taught that the environment in universities would damage my relationship with Jehovah and that if I'm wasting my time in school instead of helping others learn about Jehovah before Armaggedon I could have a lot of blood on my hands that Jehovah would ask back from me.
If your child grows up and becomes a JW- if he "sins" against god and is disfellowshipped, what will happen to his relationship with his father? His father will shun him at a time that he probably needs his father the most. Or if your son gets baptized at a young age and later realizes he no longer wants to be in this organization. His father will shun him. This has happened to me. I lost my entire family when I realized the lies and scandals surrounding this cult.
I have family who are not JW. For over 15 years growing up I saw very little of them. When I was with them I had to be on-guard and defensive against Satan's tactics to use non-JW family to get me to sin against Jehovah. Despite all of my family's attempts to include me and show me love, I never showed up to holidays with them, I returned any birthday and holidays cards they sent me. The organization teaches that I have to preach to them and get them to convert, or else when they die at Armaggedon that will be my fault. All of my conversations with them were uncomfortable and me preaching. Needless to say, my relationship with my non-JW family was deeply damaged. Since leaving the borganization, the lonliness stings more because I have family but I've damaged the relationships and I feel so guilty because of that. Thankfully they're willing to help me rebuild; this unconditional love that they showed to me for so many years is something you will not find in the JW organization.
I don't know the situation you are in but I'm uncomfortably knowledgeable about the burdens your child will have to endure. Please have a hard think about the pros and cons of you staying with this JW man and your son growing up a Jehovah's Witness. I know it's difficult to think of your child not having a close relationship to his father but even with his father in the house, if his father is a good JW showing that cult personality, they will not be close anyways.
That is fine with me, until he decides that we're not having sex until we get married (supposedly June 30, 2012).
You may wish to ask him what happens regarding sex once you are married. Did you realise that the WTS controls even what happens in the privacy of your own bedroom? Ask him what you can and cannot do! If he will not spell it out to you we will.
You have a lot of advice here to read through, personally I think the best comment came from Moshe. Dump the guy now!
If you really don't want to dump him, then refuse to marry him. If he really has feelings for you he will drop the JW religion and live with you without getting married. Once you marry this guy you have lost your life.
George
P.S. Yes I know what I am talking about, I am mid 60's and been a JW all my life. I am still 'in' only because I don't want to lose my wife and family.
Oh, there are many good responses here, but please PLEASE listen to Hortensia!!
"...but I've been around a long time and I've seen a lot of relationships. You have a responsibility to your child now. I grew up JW and it is not a good religion for children. My personal opinion is that you would be better off not getting married. You made one mistake by getting pregnant so soon, before you really knew this man. Now, don't make it worse by marrying him and his religion. ..."
The more responses I've read, the more I agree with Hortensia - Moshe, and others...
Do NOT marry this man!! Walk away - get decent child support, and then WALK AWAY.
He is ALREADY setting 'conditions' in your relationship WITHOUT getting your input - did you FREELY AGREE to the "No sex for a year" rule??? Or was pressure applied to 'assist' you in your decision...??
And that is ONLY the tip of the iceberg...
What will happen if he's NOT "reinstated" after a year?? No marriage??? NO SEX???
Some people go for YEARS - even DECADES - before the Watchtower Society's 'elders' allow them back in!!!
Do you really want your SON raised like this? With this sort of "rigid-obedience-to-rules-controlling-EVERY-aspect-of-your-life" mentality???
Let me put it another way...
The bible was basically written by Bronze-Age Middle-Eastern nomadic MALES. Would you want the likes of the Ayatollah Khomeni, the Taliban, the Al Quaida, Osama bin Laden, dictating how you are to live your life, what sort of sex you're allowed to have, what you can wear, what is deemed "modest" or "immodest", what sorts of music you can listen to, what sort of parties you're allowed to have - and how LARGE they can be, and so on????
Run now, while you still can.
If for SOME reason, you decide to STAY with this flip-flopper, MAKE SURE THAT THERE ARE NO MORE CHILDREN IN THIS RELATIONSHIP.
I was battered and bullied into the JWs by my parents, and I married a JW because that was supposedly my ONLY option.
But I knew that I'd need to move fast, some day, and I MADE SURE THAT THERE WERE NO CHILDREN. Dragging a child along in my escape would have made it a THOUSAND times more difficult.
I used birth control EVERY day of my JW life. Leaving with one child is hard; leaving with two - or more - could be disastrous.
Best of luck to you - keep your head clear and make those hard decisions that will benefit you and your child in future - not just the 'easy' route for the moment...
Zid
To balance out George I am also in my mid 60's but got out along with my wife when I was 23. I left based on the following: God is indifferent to human suffering or he is not powerful enough to do anything about it. Either way a belief in a god like that is worthless.
Secondly even back then the Blood issue was bogus entirely made up and they are the only religion that believes that it is better for a child/person to suffer and die for what is actually a dietary law ie. a way to prepare meat. The Blood issue is the JW's version of drinking the Kool-Aid only unlike the one time death of 1,000 or so followers of Jim Jones the JW's manage to kill thousands of men women and children every year! Year in and year out since 1945 when they dreamed this belief up.
Along with their belief in Armageddon (that little world wide war that Jesus forgot to tell us about------- ditto about blood) The Jw's are in my opinion a death cult disguised as Ozzie and Harriet.
Getting away from their wackadoodle beliefs was the best thing we did.
Oh, and one other point...
As Gary Neal said,
"...Frankly, I told my wife and her sister that Jehovah's Witnesses should simply marry other witnesses and leave us 'worldlies' alone. Her sister is not currently married and is 'living in the world.' I asked her if she plans on ever being a witness again and she hesitated and said that it was not for her right now. My response, "If you think you ever will, marry a witness, do not marry a worldly and drag him into it." ..."
Believe it or not, some rather unscrupulous Jehovah's Witnesses actually DO pull this sort of stunt - there was a young man on this very website, about 6 - 8 months ago, who had fallen in love with a relatively inactive Jehovah's Witness girl. After she was sure of his affections, she began toying with him, trying to get him to 'convert' before she would "consider" his affections and possible proposal...
What ultimately happened, you may ask?
Well, the relatively inactive Jehovah's Witness girl ended up getting married - TO SOME OTHER JEHOVAH'S WITNESS. But, while she was getting married to the other JW - someone who was 3 - 5 years YOUNGER than herself, btw...
SHE WAS STILL ATTEMPTING TO DRAG THIS UNFORTUNATE "worldly" boy INTO THE CULT, with promises of her 'affections', too!!!
Does anyone here remember what name that young fellow posted under, so we can direct JuneBug to his posts???
Thanks in advance! Zid
I think it's summed up neatly by this passage from the 10/1/95 Watchtower, in which the WTBTS states that a follower of God "must love family members lessthan they love God". Of course, this means loving God only through the proxy of the Watchtower Society.
I don't know about you, but I'm not comfortable with a religion that specifically tells me that love and loyalty in the family is less important than the religion.
Noooooooo! Run like the dickens. For the sake of your child. It's a dangerous organization.
Junebug seems to have left the board...
I hope that her baby is all right... Being a new mother is difficult - one is tired, overworked...
Perhaps she's been told by the boyfriend - fiancee' - that she'd better not visit any "apostate" sites...
I hope that she's doing o-kay...
Ziddina: let's hope for the best.
