Hi Everyone, I have been on here for a little while and haven't introduced myself to you. I can't tell you how much all of you have helped me sort many things out in my mind.
I was raised in a very good Christian home and married my HS sweetheart. I left home and moved half way across the country with a husband and a brand new baby. After 5 years of marriage it ended. It was very lonly for me because I only knew the people I worked with until I met a very nice man. He is a born in and his family has 6 generations on one side of the family and 5 generations on the others. His Grandmother professed to be of the anointed and was a Special Pioneer for many years. He was disfellowshipped at the time we met and I knew very little about the Witnesses. One thing that really bothered me was the custom of disfellowshipping. I told him that I didn't want to have anything to do with anyone that would treat you that way. He explained to me that it was the right thing to do because it was from the Bible. I wish I would have kept that feeling in my mind for the rest of my life!
I met many of his friends and other Witnesses that his Mom introduced me to. Of course I was love bombed and didn't realize what was happening to me. I would come home from gatherings and tell him how exciting it was to meet all of these wonderful friendly people.
We got married and I encouraged him to go back to meetings. He told that I didn't understand that it is a way of life and it wasn't just that easy. I went with him to the meetings and had a study with a couple of sisters and he was reinstated. Life was pretty good and he was made a MS and I was baptized.
He was appointed and Elder and he was on for years and very involved in the KH Buildings. He was on the Regional Building Committee and also many local KH projects. He gave so much time and money to these builds. In the meantime I got very ill and missed a lot of meetings. So you can imagine how we were treated!! I was treated horibble during this period and a brand new CO came to town and felt he should step down because I was missing meetings so my husband said fine!! We were treated like we were disfellowshipped which was awful.
Many times after that the brothers begged him to reach out again but he never would because he didn't like how the brothers were acting and he was through with the nonsense. My health worsened and during this time I had 6 surgeries and during this time I had ONE meal from the congregation! I kept saying how can this be the truth if there is no love shown.
We were both struggling and we sought out therapy and found a wonderful person that worked with us and she knew our background but never touched the religion but helped us get stronger. Finally I stopped going to the meetings because of my health but I noticed when I was away from it I felt better. I then went to a couple of meetings and had a panic attack when I walked into the KH and I thought something is not right so I started reading everything I could get my hands on. I was reading Crisis Of Conscience and would tell my husband what I was reading and he would come back with the response he learned for the WT and I said to him "that is exactly what they said you would say"! He said "OK, let me read the book".
He was shocked by what he read and we have been on this journey together. We have been married 31 years and I am so thankful that we did this together. It never crossed my mind when I started this that he wouldn't come along but I am fortunate because from reading I can see that many spouses don't listen.
We have faded at this point but I think for us to have any peace we will DA ourselves. We are using this time to help others out and he has a niece that he wants to help out.
Going through all of this has been hard and in the mean time I found out I have an early stage cancer. Not one JW has done anything to help. It really sealed it for me to see that the only thing important to them is putting in field service hours. I have a lot of anger about all of this. I waisted almost 30 years of my life and for my husband he gave 58 years of his life. I just hope we have many years ahead to enjoy life. Oh, an my family is so happy. I found out that my Dad use to cry when they would get together over the holidays because I wasn't there. He told my siblings that we can't lose her no matter what. They were always very careful what they said to me and I am so thankful that I never cut them off. I have gained so much since I left just in being so much closer to my family and I celebrated my first Christmas in 30 years and my family made it so special for me.
I hope this wasn't too long and again I want to thank all of you for the time you put into this site and for just being there.
Aunt Fancy