Hi Hagey, welcome to the board.
I’m a non-JW married to a man who was raised by a JW mother and a non-JW father. He walked away from the religion as an unbaptized teenager, but was baptized at the end of 1999, after 9 years of marriage and two kids.
I found out what religion he had been raised in after we had been dating about 10 months. My parents, not clouded by the rosy lenses of love, had found out before that, and tried to caution me about inter-faith relationships. But we were already dealing with a racially and culturally mixed relationship, and religion wasn’t very important to my to-be husband or me, so I listened to their advise but determined love conquered all and things would work out.
Things change when you become a parent. It did for us. You want to pass on your ideas, your traditions, your values, your beliefs, etc. to your children and it wasn’t until then that the dynamic differences in our spiritual beliefs started to emerge.
Luckily, my spouse differs with the WTS’s view on blood, so we at least managed to come to an agreement on whether or not our children can receive blood should the need arise. It did take some persistence to get him to voice such a disagreement with the blood doctrine and to promise that the kids and I do receive blood if the need arises.
Agreements on other issues have not been so easy. There are constant reminders on how different our upbringings have been, not so much on a cultural difference, but on a religious difference. Holidays, birthdays, playmates, school clubs and activities, higher education, and the list goes on. There was/is a continual measuring of how important an issue is to you and where you would draw your line in the sand. I realize that this is a factor in all relationships, but when your views are so different as they can be in a JW/ non-JW relationship it seems to be multiplied exponentially.
I’m not trying to scare you off of the situation, just to give you an idea of what it may be like. My in-laws have been married almost 35 years and my husband and I will be celebrating our 11th anniversary in less than two months. I recommend, if possible (it wasn’t for me) to take an objective look at your relationship and your girlfriend. I don’t know how deep her ties to the WTS go (how many relatives and friends she has in the Org.), the deeper they are, I think the harder it will be for her to compromise on the issues you two disagree on. Getting married will not make any resolutions easier, but adds a whole new layer of complexities.
There may be a push to convert you, if there hasn’t been one already. You may decide that the WTS is for you, if so that will help smooth things out somewhat (just remember there’s a high price for leaving the Org should you change your mind). Conversely, you may try to convert her to your point-of-view and decide to share with your girlfriend some of the things you have discovered about the WTS, but I would advise you to be very careful in how you present the information.
Good luck,
Michelle
I was just about to post this and I noticed your third post where you mentioned children. It’s a good idea to get agreements on how to raise children before you have them. I thought my kids could attend the KH and other places of worship and then decide as adults what was right for them. Only after attending the KH myself and reading the WT literature did I see how skewed the Org’s teachings are—there are two sides, good and evil and no middle ground. Interfaith activities definitely fall into the realm of evil in the WT’s point of view. Just some information I thought you should know.
