I'm sure that if I had come to this website as a non-JW looking for information on this cult when I was dating my JW girlfriend, I would not have taken any notice of a message like this. But I cannot stress this enough to any non-JW in a relationship with a JW: GET OUT NOW!
It is only natural to believe that your relationship will be different to the other failed relationships between believers and non believers which you read about on boards like these. But I promise it's not. End it sooner rather than later. In fact end it right now.
Being a JW is so much more than a belief. It's a complete way of life. The sooner you accept that as a non-JW you cannot be with a JW, the easier it is for everyone, especially yourself.
I dated a JW and I regret it so much. My mistake was thinking that our love - and it really was true love - would be enough to overcome any problems that we had based on our religious beliefs (I'm a dedicated aetheist!!).
Basically she left the organisation not long after meeting me so that we could be together. About 5 months later we moved in together. And although it was hard for her in that her friends completely stopped talking to her, I was as supportive as I could be, and she was popular with all my friends. We seriously talked about marriage and children, and were very much in love.
But suddenly, completely out of the blue, she told me she missed her life as a JW, and within a couple of weeks she had moved back in with her parents.
Now she does not even talk to me, I'm assuming because if she continues talking to me she will not be fully accepted back into this vile organisation.
I have wasted so much love, so much energy, so much money, so much hope on this relationship. She was brought up as a JW, and I think when this is the case, however hard they may want to escape the Watchtower, they have experienced too much propaganda and too much indoctrination to be able to become a "normal" worldly person.
I am now trying hard to rebuild my life, which was completely destroyed by this. And although I have cried about her every day since she left, I know I have to be thankful that it was not after we had married as that would have been so much harder.
Any one in a JW / non-JW should end it now. It just does not work. However wonderful a person you are, a non-JW cannot compete with an organisation which exerts so much mind control over its members, especially when the family of your JW partner is also in the clutches of the watchtower.
Ultimately the JW will have to choose: you, or the ideas and beliefs which they have spent years being brainwashed with, along with their family and friends. They will always choose the latter.
Some posts on this site have advised non-JWs to continue with their lives, and not waste time on hoping the JW will come to his / her senses. This is the best advice. Don't waste your time trying to convince them - they are trained to direct their love only to Jehovah (and the Watchtower!).
Similarly, some posts here have said that maybe the JW will come to his / her senses. Don't count on it though. And from my experience, I would urge all non-JWs to be sceptical that a JW can ever truely become a non-believer. In my case, my girlfriend told me that she was completely over being a JW and that she didn't believe what this cult preached. That turned out to be one of many false statements.
I cannot emphasise this enough. If it saves just one non-JW from getting hurt this post will be worth it. Leave now. Because these relationships DO NOT WORK.
All the best to everyone in a situation like me, who has been left destroyed by something like this.
Simon, a devastated guy in England, but fighting on and looking to the future.
