distorted bellyful: In love with a JW... (1), Social / Dating & Relationships

Curious, really, REALLY listen and take note of the so far 100% unanimous response on this board.

You DON'T want to marry this guy. You really don't.

You've named your thread "in love with a JW". But, you can already see that he isn't in love with you. He is attracted to you, yes, but does he love you as you are? No. You're not a JW.

JW's go to great length to protest that they are not a cult...yes, they are. Absolutely. Research JW's as a cult on here and on Google.

I came very, very close to being a JW, from a knowledgeable, educated? Anglican/Catholic background. I got that close due to being caught by some very clever and manipulative JW's at a time when my own church had become immersed in local scandal. As so many people have done before me, I made the mistake of trying to prove to experienced JW's just where their thinking was wrong. Bad idea.

As an aside, that's another warning. Don't ever do it. Just walk away. Run.

Anyway, I got so very close before, suddenly and unexpectedly, two elders inadvertently revealed their true colours and those of the Watchtower. So I know.

This lovely man with whom you are in love will be head of your house. Not in the ordinary way, where a wife might say to a caller "I must ask my husband first". Many JW men, outwardly mild and kind (they'll tell you they are to love their wives as themselves) are basically no more or less than petty tyrants. I have seen men who are weak acting as tyrants at home. I've seen men who appear to be strong and fine examples of Christians reveal themseves to be intolerant bigots.

You hope for children? Anglican children may go to a Family Service or Sunday School, and in many C of E churches there are soft playmats and quiet toys at the back. Be prepared to have your JW children, from the earliest age, required to sit, well-behaved,? for 2 hours quietly in a meeting. The most they might be allowed is one quiet book (about Jesus). They'll be encouraged to "answer up" with simple answers to inane questions, so that everyone can murmur "aaah". I have seen one of those same elders I mentioned earlier treat a two-year-old very harshly when he ran in the Kingdom Hall after the meeting was over.

As a mother, you'll be required and expected to go out and about with your child or baby in a pushchair, or if a little older carrying their own little bag full of tracts. They'll even be urged to knock on doors. It's true, and in my view close to child abuse. Older JW's talk of doing it as children. There is a little 3 year old here whose mother was baptised in the autumn. Right now, he's happy. Will he be so happy at 6? 8? 10? 12?

By 12 he'll be being urged to consider baptism, and to look forward to the fine "education" the Watchtower offers, "much better than any other education", says my earnest study condductor. She believes it.?

When he's older, he might like a girl. No good, as you know, unless she is in the "truth" (because, remember, no other religion has the truth. No ecumenism amongst JW's. I was astonished to find that most of them don't even know the word, familiar to everyone in the ordinary churches.) But here is the thing. If he really likes her and she him, and they want to pursue things seriously, then you really, truly have to chaperone them. Yes. Straight out of the 18th century. It's true. My study conductor told me how she chaperoned her daughter and her fiance.

No birthdays. No Christmas. No Easter, no Easter eggs. No Mothering Sunday. No participation in any local festivals or celebration. No Queen's Diamond Jubilee party for you. Oh, and I don't know if you're interested in current affairs, but, sorry, it's tough, but you'd never be able to vote again, never mind how hard women fought to get the vote.No more happy times with your old friends. (I'm lucky. My old friends still want to know me and have been very understanding and forgiving of my two years of brainwashed folly.)

You'd have to undergo many months of indoctrination, oops, sorry, study, from the book "What does the Bible Really Teach?" An insidious, manipulative title if ever there was one, and indicative of what awaits you inside the covers. And instead of going to a church service and listening to a sermon or homily, you'll abandon all form of normal worship (and never be able to participate in it again...totally forbidden.) Instead you get a half hour talk from a brother, who is clapped in applause at the finish, so very unlike a church sermon, and then a long communal reading-through of an article in the "Study Watchtower" which is interspersed, paragraph by paragraph, with questions to the congregation. The answers required? are all evident from the text just read, but to "prepare" for the process, everyone is expcted to go through the magazine beforehand with pen and/or highlighter underlining important bits and writing in the margins gems from your own "research" from WT literature, of course. This inane activity is much valued, so much so that your study conductor (from my experience) is likely to keep looking over your shoulder at your copy, checking for evidence of preparation.Oh, you also have songs, from the JW song book. They are of this sort: "Listen, Obey and Be Blessed." And many others of that ilk. Their nature rather gives the game away, but the scary thing is, the longer you attend these metings the more ordinary it seems, until something wakes you up.

The whole organisation is riddled with hypocrisy. They condemn Pharisees etc but in everything, despite constantly stressing the importance of "heart condition", what matters is what shows. It's all for show. They'll come to your home, and might, as my study conductor did, sit and stare at your DVD's and/or books and tell you which ones you have to throw out. True. This really happened. (I listened meekly but didn't do it.)

Stay right away from it. If your JW man is as immersed as he sounds to be, stay away from him too. End it. You may have a month or so of what feels like heartbreak, but believe me, you will have had a lucky escape.

Many, many years ago a wise old friend said to me "A love affair that isn't equal on both sides, is not a love affair." This isn't equal. He has to put his religion before you, because his religion requires that it come first in his life. God isn't like that. As an Anglican, you know God to be a loving God. The WT's Jehovah is a petty-minded powerful Old Testament God who intends to wipe away everyone who doesn't obey him down to minute details. Oh, and you might think he can't make rulings in minute details these days. Wrong. The Governing Body of the WT, and authority right down to local elders who may or may not be good or intelligent, are God's vehicle of authority. Disobey and elder and you are disobeying Jehovah. God.

It's rubbish. All of it.

Edit: Curious, I've just realised you've already accepted a Bible Study. It is not a Bible Study. It is what the Watchtower says the Bible says. It messes up the mind. Don't do it. Seriously. Just don't.