Comments on: Doing Tolerance: How Jehovah's Witnesses Live with Unbelieving Relatives

By: Monica MacLellan

Monica MacLellan — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 02:48:12 +0000

I am sick to my heart. My daughter married a young man who claimed his parents joined the JW movement when he was 16 years old. He supposedly left home then, denouncing them. He bad mouthed them and the ‘religion’ to the point of.. I can’t express where. He, did however carefully manoeuvre their lives toward his own family and systematically away from ours. In 2006 shortly before my husband’s death, they began to estrange themselves from our family and suddenly in December 2006 there was no birthday party for my grand daughter, there were no xmas lights and our ‘lights’ came on Oh no JW. Can’t be. He still denied denied denied saying my daughter was more into it than he. While he was away this year for 6 months, my daughter and I were constant companions. Since his return, his own anti social behaviour and my daughter’s sudden non communication and avoidance of me, he has finally admitted he is about to ‘return’ to JW… of which he was not supposed to have been a member to begin with. Therefore it is my I belief and has been for a couple of years, his intention was to recruit by marriage and birth. I am not terribly religious, but I would rather live my life with the rest of my family open and free than to live the sequestered and lonely life of a JW. I wish I could make my naive and vulernable daughter ’see the light’. This is too new to me and I am still too confused and angry to even contemplate a discussion with him. My daughter is miserable and so are the children. I don’t have any photos where they are smiling and their eyes ‘are sparkling’ I just want to continue crying. Why would he want to take my daughter away from her family. They don’t know what love is, if they continue to separate families. To my uneducated mind this is indeed a ‘cult’that tears families apart under the guise of a loving Jehovah and my daughter is lost to me.

By: sharon

sharon — Sat, 22 Jul 2006 15:01:28 +0000

hi
my husband was a jw for 23 yrs, and he gave his life to Jesus about two yrs ago.
he has found out through study of the scriptures without the new world translation, that Jesus is Lord and is worshiped by angels and by man.
he has children that have nothing to do with him, even though his ex wife was the adultress in their previous marriage.
God can do miracles, so keep praying for your husband, i will pray for him too.
it is Gods will that all come to know him as Lord and Savior.
may the Lord keep you close in his precense daily.
God bless!

By: Tyshic Muhammad

Tyshic Muhammad — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 16:59:40 +0000

As- Salaam alaikum(peace be unto you),

I read what you have written, and I was moved to write you because, I know how hard it is to be removed from that which you love the most and that is the creator. Your relationship with Jehovah is a personal as well as intimate one. So keep your faith and strength in him and he will continue to love and guide you out of these twist and trials.

Jehovah loves us all.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Dec 2005 05:41:53 +0000

I was born and raised a jehovah witness. i was baptized the summer of 2000. My reason for being baptized was to be baptized to God, not an organization. I since then, got married to someone who is not a jehovah witness. The witnesses have been trying to disfellowship me for the last 3 years, i am in disbelief that they would try to take away my faith to God,and strip away what i believe. I have also been disowned by family and friends. Since i do not share the same ideals or beliefs that they do. I have been told that it will encourage me to go back to the kingdom hall if people cut off all contact with me. i do not think there is any encouragement by cutting off all ties with someone you love. I do not hold any resentment towards anyone, since i know there beliefs, i have to try my best to respect that. On the other hand though, God is a loving being, He created us equal, and also to live up to our own conscience, and moral code. He is our only real true judge. So for the headline of this artical,”how jw live with unbelieving relatives” the answer to that is, How unbelieving live without jehovah witness relatives? wouldn’t life be easier if we could all make are own decisions, and people would respect them, rather than always try to make people feel like they are doing wrong?

By: Julie Deisenroth

Julie Deisenroth — Fri, 18 Nov 2005 04:20:59 +0000

A most interesting article! My husband and I will have our 35th anniversary this month, but we spent many years, 23 to be exact, with him as a JW. He joined after we moved 400 miles away from our families and with the support of another couple who moved away with us. I hated it from the start. Yes, being the “unbelieving wife” is the harder role. I, however, had my own faith that labels him as the unbeliever! It was SO hard on our children. We have 5. The oldest son had it the hardest and still suffers from it. The 2 girls have joined me in my beliefs, but the boys are agnostic as their father is now. He fell away when he realized that none of the children would go into the religion with him. I always thought I would write a book about living in the “pressure cooker”. There was always a lot of anger in our household and that was not good. I believed all those years that my husband would come out of the WTS and I continue to believe that he will find the Lord. JW cannot understand the unconditional love of God, nor can they accept that Jesus paid the price for our sins in full. Because, as you said, they are rational in their approach, they are afraid of an emotional relationship with the God who made us and loves us and lives in us.
So much of what you said resonates with me. So glad I came accross this site. JulieD