Just wanted to say HELLO since I am new to this forum. Allow myself to introduce myself. LOL
This is my real name. I go by Ricky though. I was raised a J-double-U since I was 6 years old and got baptized when I was 15 years old in 1994. I was DF'd twice in my late teens and early 20's and ended up getting on the straight and narrow after my second DF'ing. I got married to a very spiritual JW sister in 2005, had our son in 2007, and our daughter in 2009.
After the birth of our son, my wife quit her well paying career to be a stay at home mother and a full-time pioneer. This spearheaded this twice-DF'd-brother to get privileges and eventually become a MS in 2009, which I remained one until the day I was DF'd for the 3rd and final time, July 24, 2014.
I started waking up in March of 2014, just after the memorial. We were also revving up to have an international convention held in our territory, so while everyone was buzzing about this special privilege to host an international convention in our own backyard, I was immersing myself, like a sponge,about learning TTATT.
Eventually my wife could no longer take the little nuggets of TTATT I shared with her when she asked, and she gave me an ultimatum to go talk to the elders or else she would, cell phone in hand. I agree to talk to them after the convention, which was less than 2 weeks away.
I don't think she seriously thought I would get DF'd just by talking to the elders, but I had pretty much told her that the information she was rejecting made me think seriously if I wanted to remain a JW. By the time I sat down with the elders, and my judicial committee, there was so much wrong going on toward me by elders that I considered to be close friends, that I made my mind up and I did not want to be a JW any longer. My family did not want to listen to me and my wife was basically rejecting me. The process of losing everything had already begun even before it was decided that I was to be disfellowshipped.
Anyways, my story is not unique. I lost just about everything, family, friends, home, possessions. Home life was miserable, my JW wife began shunning me at home, we fought about everything, and my kids were suffering. I ended up separating back in November. Seemed like divorce was imminent.
But back in March, for some unknown reason, we started to try to reconcile one last try before moving forward with a divorce. Things have actually gotten better. She suggested marriage counseling, which has helped tremendously. She said that she no longer sees me as an apostate, but as an unbeliever. She has suggested doing things together that normal JWs would not do, like going to a hip-hop concert at a casino for our 10 year anniversary back in April. I have chosen not to talk about religion or my new beliefs, simple because we could not talk about it without the conversation getting overheated. I have given up hope of her waking up. Maybe she will in her own time, but it's not going to be from me. She asked enough questions and I shared enough TTATT with her to make a normal, reasonable person to stop and think. But it almost ended our marriage. We are still separated but I think we may end up getting back together soon, probably when the new school year starts. So, I have resolved to just let it go. There may be something that snaps her out of it, but like I said, it's not going to be me... until she is ready to leave.
Anyways, I didn't think this post would be this long, so thanks for reading the entire post. In 10 days it will be one year free and disfellowshipped as a big bad apostate. I'm around on YouTube, I blog for avoidjw.org, and I'm active in the XJW Facebook world, so feel free to send friend requests, email, IM, etc. Its nice to be here and I enjoy this forum. I've known about it for some time, I just don't know why it's taken me this long to join. Nice to be here y'all.