I got married to my JW husband. My own personal Armageddon began.
This I call the second biggest regret of my life. The first being pulled out of high school after my sophomore year in 1973 to go into the ministry work and do as much as I could before the Big A. I hated trying to pioneer. I was and am a lousy salesperson. Probably because I regretted not going back to school in the fall, and prbably because I was going along with "it", and really didn't feel it deep in my heart. I wasn't "passionate" about it at all.
I was engaged in February after a 2 week courtship that got the hormones fired up. Basically, he was the first guy that came along with much interest. I was tired and bored of staying home, I was lonely, it was what I was supposed to do. I told D** that I did not want children for 5 years because I wanted to be ready with him having a good job and in our own house. He was fine with that. I realized later that it was out of deep selfishness.
By mid- April I could see who he was and what he was like. I wanted to back out of the marriage then, but it was too late, the invitations werre already sent. I never said word one to my mom about any of it.... as a good girl I was supposed to get married and raise kids. So I dutifully trudged forward into the marriage, and all that was to come.
First the shunning from his congregation because of the family I married into. This even though he was being groomed and considered for Ministerial Servant. That grooming didn't last long as he saw how I was treated in the congregation and began lashing out at it. I must say that because he was a bit of a hothead, he was not totally looked kindly upon by the congregation either.
Because of the shunning, I fairly rapidly got to the point where I could no longer attend meetings. I don't like being in a place where I'm looked down upon! I have always considered myself everyone's equal, and to a JW limited extent, a man's partner and supporter.
After we moved out of his moms camper that we lived in in the driveway of her house, and into our own little place, we had "the encouragement visit", I think this was the following year - 1976, and D** kicked them out of the house. I don't think I showed up after that for anything other than the occasional sunday talk my mom-in-law would encourage me to attend, or the memorial. I think my last memorial was in 1977 or 1978, I really can't remember.
My marriage was growing progressively worse. Slowly not only did I not attend meetings, but my husband began compromising my time and limited my outside friendships and even my relationship with my parents. I remember one family dinner I went to for my dad's retirement, D** would not go, even though it was my dad who got him into the Electrical Union and his job where my dad worked! I was late getting home by 20 minutes because of a car accident, and I got my first beating.
At 5 years into the marriage I thought about children. NO WAY IN HELL was I going to bring a child into THAT marriage! It was also then that D** started telling me that "If we have a baby everything will be better!" I didn't believe it for one minute.
After a couple of suicide attempts I finally scared the life back into myself on my 25th birthday, November 22, 1981. Not only did I not want to spend time in prison for killing D** - I gave it very serious consideration! - but I no longer wanted to kill myself to get out of the marriage. A few short months later, I had an affair that broke the marriage's back and got me emotionally away from D**. THIS was after 5 years of physcial and emotional abuse and 3 years of him having his own affairs, and still demanding his husbandly due nightly, no matter how I felt about it.
On Friday, July 2, 1982, I got home from work, threw a bunch of clothes into a laundry basket, called my dad and said "I'm coming home" and left. October 1982 the divorce was finalized. My Armageddon was over, and I was in a new world.
Independence day is still a special day for me.