When I told my husband who left the organization over 30 years before I did that I wasn’t going to be a JW anymore, he took it rather well. After the initial shock wore off, his main concern was that I was going to have to rethink everything I had ever believed to be true and decide for myself whether or not I still wanted to hold on to that belief. He handed me The God Delusion, by Richard Dawkins.
My (DF’d) son said, “Whoa, I didn’t see that one comin!”
My (DA’d by her actions) daughter seemed to be nonplussed by my announcement.
My uber-JW in-laws have clearly surmised that I have left. They live over 500 miles away. On our last visit over two years ago, my MIL asked if I was still going to meetings. I opened my eyes wide, looked her straight in the face and asked, “Why would you ask such a thing?” and walked away. We won’t be visiting again anytime soon. They have made it abundantly clear that they are "all set, everything is taken care of (hubby is written out of the will) and communication would be nice, but is not necessary."
Last fall I stopped writing to my MIL which I had done as my “duty” as “a good Christian wife” for 35 years. I told my hubby—his mother was his problem. I was tired of her “death threats” (attempts to re-assimilate hubby through thinly veiled threats of death and destruction at The Big A). She hasn’t written to me in a year, and I don’t miss her hate speech.
In addition to being JWs my in-laws are racist. In the last phone conversation with my husband, my FIL was so concerned that my daughter had married an Irishman who will, of course, end up a good-for-nothing drunk that he forgot to ask his name. My MIL wrote a note to my husband requesting the name. We ignored it.
My husband will call his father (his mother won’t speak to him) about once a year to check on them, usually when there is a major weather event in their area. Seven feet of snow in Buffalo qualifies. They are in their late '80s. My FIL will talk for five minutes or less. Clearly, he was snowed in and had nowhere pressing to be, but five minutes was it! He didn't even ask about our daughter who is pregnant with his great-grand child. Neither one has ever initiated a phone call in all these years. I was always the go between for them and their "apostate" son. Not so much anymore.
After five straight months of nearly daily contact from local JWs when I first walked away, all contact stopped abruptly right after their SAD which I didn’t attend. Weird, but I welcome the silence. If we cross paths in town, they are always pleasant-- "We miss you at the meetings." Whatever.
Three close JW “friends” asked why I left. I simply told them it was a matter of conscience and that the elders are fully informed. I told the elders that I wouldn’t be a hypocrite and attend meetings that teach I should shun my son when that wasn’t going to happen and that I couldn’t bear to hear them say my family was going to die at Armageddon one more time. I played the mental health card. My husband is a “known apostate” who they could never get the goods on. They don’t even give him the once-yearly visit. My neighbor reported to me that she watched the last time JWs were in the neighborhood, and they didn’t even bother to go to our door. Yes!
Sail Away
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