It's been about 10 years since I posted here. A lot's happened of course. But here's where I'm at right now.
I was never (to my knowledge) disfellowshipped. I never formally disassociated. I've been living as a "worldly" person for about 14 years now. I "faded." I still maintain speaking relationships with my immediate JW family with one exception. I am now currently married and we have a young daughter.
One thing that "keeps me up at night" is my mother trying to indoctrinate my daughter. I haven't really discussed it with my mom, but I feel that things are going to come to a head when she starts asking if my daughter can spend the night there, because my wife and I have agreed that our daughter will never spend time alone with my mom.
My mom is a 100% pure JW robot. Her loyalty is to the organization. To her, the organization and God are synonymous. She even told me there's nothing the organization could say or do that would make her question it. One thing that goes through my mind is my mom kidnapping my daughter out of a genuine concern of "saving" her from armageddon. I realized that this is a very far-fetched scenario but JW new light is unpredictable and I don't feel comfortable taking the chance that there could be some convention part or in the broadcast telling JWs to go so far as to "do what is necessary" to save other family members who might not necessarily "want" to be saved at first.
She periodically bugs me about religion. She sends me doom and gloom texts telling me how I need to come back to Jehovah because my family's life is at stake. She also helps us out a lot, especially financially (we don't ask for help, she just sends us money when she hears we get into a bind). She's very generous. I know she's not "buying" our love but I have to admit it does make me feel like I have some obligation toward her. Plus, I would really like my daughter to have a relationship with all of her living grandparents. If my mother could respect boundaries and had personal limits as to what she'd do for the organization, it wouldn't be an issue. I could handle the occasional religious nagging.
Anyway, to the point, I was listening to a podcast where Lloyd Evans was interviewed, and he mentioned that he decided do disassociate himself for the good of his daughter, to provide a barrier to prevent in-laws from indoctrinating his daughter. It got me wondering if I should do this. The idea of a "clean break" from the organization even after all these years is appealing to me. I'd be making it absolutely clear that there's no chance of me coming back. On the downside, it would mean my family has to shun me officially (they get around the rule because I'm not disfellowshipped). And honestly I'm not even sure my mom would shun me. My older brother was disfellowshipped for years, even started believing in doctrines like the trinity and immortal soul, and my mom still talked to him on the phone almost every night. They'd even have religious debates.
I'm just having trouble deciding if the "clean break" is worth the extra complications it would cause for my family.