Being One of Jehovah's Witnesses and Life After

The Path Out

I will not go into great detail about the end of my marriage because that is all water under the bridge and my ex and I get along just fine these days. I have no desire to dredge up past mistakes or rekindle arguments long settled. Suffice to say, my wife went through an episode in her life which resulted in us separating and then divorcing. But during that troubled time before the end, I was desperately trying to keep my family together. The one thing that meant the most to me was slipping away and I could not do anything about it. I prayed incessantly to Jehovah to just not let our family fall apart but to no avail. I thought Jehovah cared about families and hated divorce, but he did not seem to have the desire to help mine in any way. 

At this point, I know that active JWs will say that I am blaming my problems on Jehovah. That is not the case as at this time in my life I know that neither Jehovah nor Satan had anything to do with my life's problems. The responsibility of events falls upon the people involved and the decisions made. What I am trying to say is that I started thinking differently about things. I did not take certain things as given but considered that maybe things I thought were unquestionably true were not.

One thing that greatly contributed to my shift in viewpoints was the way people treated me during the hard time that led up to my separation and divorce. I noticed that the people who really showed empathy and concern were by and large not my fellow JWs. It was my Baptist family members like my both of my grandmothers and coworkers and friends who were "worldly" that offered comfort and support, things which helped me stay strong. On the other hand, the elders only seemed to care about judicial meetings and determining who was at fault and what if any rules were broken. Brothers and sisters at the kingdom hall were more apt to counsel me for letting my facial hair grow out than to offer encouragement. I will not say that all JWs were like that, but the point I got from the experience is that the JW organization is not special. We were told that there was extraordinary love amongst the brotherhood, but I failed to see that. On the other hand, I saw extraordinary love and concern from non-JWs.

I was never disfellowshipped and I never disassociated myself, I just quit. If anything, when I stopped attending meetings it was a relief. I no longer had to worry so much about what everyone else thought about me or following all the silly little rules. I realized there was a lot I had been going along with that really was not coming from my own beliefs. For instance, I did not care if people were gay, lesbian, or transgender; other people's sexuality did not concern or affect me. I was tired of thinking I needed to tell people how they should be living life. I came to the conclusion that if I was doing good things, it would be because I wanted to, not because I was being told to. I could not reasonwhy God would be more happy with me faking my way as a JW than being my honest and true to myself. If Jehovah destroyed me at Armageddon, it would be for being my genuine self. "It is better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for who you are not" became my motto in life. 

I would like to point out that I harbored no ill will at that point, I simply felt like the JWs were just another group who thought they were right and had everything all figured out, nothing different, nothing special. As far as I was concerned, their organization was all fine and dandy, just not for me. But again, my viewpoint would be changed when presented with some undeniable evidence.