Be careful what you wish for (in case you want to wake up your spouse)

by nevaagain 38 Replies latest jw friends

  • Witness My Fury
    Witness My Fury
    Your marriage was a sham anyway as you married her under false pretences. She probably worked that part out early on as if your marriage was any good she wouldnt have messed around then and again now. She did more than talk btw.
  • FayeDunaway
    FayeDunaway
    Waking up is rocky. She's going through the same tumultuous mess most of us went through. I wish she hadn't started smoking, cuz that's hard to fix. But she is questioning everything right now. Including her relationship with you. You said your relationship is getting better so that's good. Thanks for letting us see this other perspective of what can happen if people drift apart. I hope you have some good discussions and are very open with each other. But mostly, give her time, she's in shock and it takes a year or two to recover. After some time you may need to reassess your life and see if you love each other on a deep enough level to stay together.
  • DJS
    DJS

    LV101,

    Wicked Witch Of The East.

  • Doubtfully Yours
    Doubtfully Yours

    Waking up is such a personal thing. I do not want to wake up anyone; let each find their way through life.

    DY

  • wisdomfrombelow
    wisdomfrombelow

    So how should I react this time?

    You have a difficult situation in your relationship. I am not a certified counselor or anything else but hesitate to make an evaluation of things with so little information and only one side of the story. If you want to try to work things out a qualified counselor might help you both communicate better with each other.

    What you are willing to put up with and what you need from a relationship is unique to you. Perhaps your wife has mental issues? Some people can tolerate physical issues and gladly take care of someone who might be house bound or otherwise very sick while others might not like the limitations it puts on them.

    Perhaps it was not the information concerning TTAT that upset her but the method by which it was conveyed. I hope you figure out what to do next and I hope you can find peace in whatever the outcome is.

  • Incognito
    Incognito

    Suggest consulting a marriage counselor if you both wish to attempt to save the marriage. If she doesn't wish to continue, then you have your answer so any attempt to force the marriage to continue, will probably result in two unhappy people and an eventual separation/divorce.

    Even if she refuses to talk to a marriage counselor, perhaps a few sessions would be beneficial for you even if you go alone.

  • OnTheWayOut
    OnTheWayOut

    Many marriages end over the religion, some may end after both parties wake up and realize they only stayed together for the religion or because it was expected of them by friends and family.

    Still, I can't say that it would have been better for you to stay at the Kingdom Hall and stay silent, or fade out and say nothing at all about TTATT. A huge part of her problem with you was your discussing this in front of her parents. You may have been able to fade away quietly and make subtle attempts to free your wife.

    Or not....

    But I tell you what. I love my wife enough to continue to hope and continue to apply subtle attempts. Direct attempts have failed, so I have to be in for the long run. If it fails, it fails. If we divorce later because "the truth" is what kept her married to me, that's okay too. That would cost me financially, but that's okay. She deserves the truth about that religion and I hope she gets it.

    On the contrary side, my main connection to my continual marriage is money. Divorce would cause me to lose a part of my pension. My wife has the potential, but doesn't earn as much as I do. So if money were not an issue, if we could both have a comfortable living separately, I would probably deliver the ultimatum sooner or later- leave the religion or I leave. It's not that I don't love her enough to stick around, it's just that the religion can become a huge negative in the way of our happiness.

  • DJS
    DJS

    Willie Nelson on marriage and divorce: “The reason divorces are so expensive is they’re worth it”


  • nevaagain
    nevaagain

    First of all thank you all very much for the replies, sorry that I couldn't respond earlier.

    I am not saying I am not to blame or that I didn't do any mistakes. I found myself alone in a new city, so knowing TTATT but still continuing going to the meetings just to not feel alone and develop friendships didn't seem like a bad decision back then (over 10 years ago). Knowing TTATT and still marrying someone might have been a bad decision. But still, she wasn't so good in the truth or else she wouldn't have married me.

    So everyone wakes up differently thats a fact and I am not blaming her, really I am not. Even if she would have cheated on me.

    So my intention with this topic was just to warn everybody that it can go either way and that somebody you know for many years all of a sudden might show personality traits which were unknown to you.

    Our marriage had problems from the start (unrelated to TTATT) just like so many young couples of witnesses have and these problems keep resurfacing and keep getting mentioned even 10 years after. Often I was at a point of giving up but since quitting and restarting is not an option (because its not a video game) our marriage might lead to a divorce anyway.

  • Lieu
    Lieu

    That sucks!!!! Without the JW smothering her real personality came out. That's the thing with JWs, you don't know who they really are because the real them is being surpressed. It's not a 'new personality', it's a fake one.

    Sucks but I think it's best that you know who she really is as opposed to who she pretended to be.

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