Not Easy

Happy Sunday,

How is everyone doing today? What have you all been up to? I am so sorry it’s been forever and a day since I’ve blogged. What a hard week it’s been. Oh my gosh, the migraine hit me like a ton of bricks. I literally felt like a block wall fell on me and squeezed the life out of my brain. I am feeling so much better, thank goodness. My body is finally getting used to the medication my doctor gave me. I wanted to thank those of you who have reached out and asked about why I wasn’t blogging. It warms my heart hearing from you all. Thank you for your love and support.

I thought I’d touch on the subject of divorce. Divorce is never easy, not by a long shot, but sometimes, after all attempts to make it work are exhausted, it’s the only option left. I want to talk not only about divorce, but women who get divorced and initiate the divorce, and women who are in a cult or religion, like that of the JW’s and chose to divorce your spouse. When I got married, I was 17 years old, however, I still had the mind set that I would be married forever to the same man. I may have not been fully aware of the commitment I was making, however, I knew I didn’t want to be like my parents. Divorced. Having that goal in mind, it did give me the incentive to work hard no matter what at making my marriage work. The problem with that mindset was, I thought I had to allow certain bad behaviors to become acceptable in my life. I took it literally to heart that I had to be in complete subjection to my husband. My mother even purchased a book for me to read before getting married. “The Total Woman.”-Marabel Morgan.

I think this book was written by a woman who had good intentions of what was needed to be the perfect wife and in turn, you’d end up with a man, your husband who would treat you like his queen. Many critics of the book though feel it was a book written to demean women. I think the book was approved by my mother and given to me to read because it actually, in my opinion taught me how to be 100% subservient. My mother is a firm believer in being 100% subservient to her husband. She doesn’t even think for herself. This book taught me how to be whatever my husband chose for me to be. It was about making him completely happy and satisfied and I must of missed the part where it taught me how to not just compliment him, but he should of been a compliment to me. We should of made each other better. I should of contributed to his happiness and he should of equally contributed to my happiness. It’s not a one way street. I will give the writer credit in that I feel she was merely trying to get us women to see the importance of putting our man first and I think she believes or thought that if we did that towards him, he’d do the same towards us, hands down. Basically, it should be a give and take, both giving their all and if that happens, then the book should be a recipe for a good, happy and balanced way of treating each other.

When you give a 17 year old a book like this though, that’s not really the problem in itself. The problem was and is, when you are raised within the confines of a religion that teaches that men are superior to women, that women are to “remain silent,” especially when it comes to teaching within the church itself, it is just reinforcing that I was born to serve my husband, 100%. I never saw any importance in wanting him to reciprocate, even though I craved for him to do so, even just a little. I would of given anything in this world to have felt love, to be told I was loved and to have him kiss me good morning and good night. I kept silent though, because that was my duty and role.

In the 1986 August 15th Watchtower, it says in paragraph 13 under the subheading, “The Family Circle, It has been observed that the mate who loves more deeply is at the mercy of the one who loves less. There seems to be a measure of truth in that. Wives, in general, love more deeply than their husbands do​—love is more important to them—​and many husbands take selfish advantage of that. On the other hand, wives have been known to show reluctance to pay the marriage due when their wishes are crossed. In fact, some wives have even refused the marriage due altogether. Sad to say, at times this has contributed to a husband’s committing adultery. All such failure to heed Paul’s counsel at 1 Corinthians 7:3-5 is likewise a selfish misuse of power.” While I will give credit to the point that the Watchtower is saying we wives generally love more deeply then our husbands, it is in my opinion it glosses right over that and places the blame of adultery right back on the woman. After all, if she is choosing to not give her husband his due, then we, the wife have contributed to his adultery.

I don’t believe in using sex as a tool to get what you want. I don’t believe in sex being used to punish or reward your partner. To me, that’s kind of like bordering on hookerism. I know, that’s not a word, but it seems to fit the point I’m trying to make. What the article in Watchtower fails to point out, is that, women need to feel, or usually need to feel a connection to their sexual partner. When your husband or partner fails to be connected to you, show you appreciation, it’s really difficult to want to have him put his penis inside you. I’m not saying women don’t use sex as a weapon, however, that’s not always the case. For me, having sex with my ex husband at the end, it was more like a violation of my body. I remember when I wanted to try and work things out with him, I told him I wanted to move into the guest room, his reply was “absolutely no!” I was his wife and I had to sleep with him. Basically, it was okay for him to go and sleep on the couch if he felt like it, but I had to be in his bed every night, no questions asked. He used his headship in a way that is not loving nor is outlined within the Bible. “Each one of you must love his wife as he does himself;… the wife should have deep respect for her husband.”-Ephesians 5:33.

Now any of you who have been a JW or who know how the religion works, they do encourage this scripture to be applied, however, there is an underlying factor to it. At the end of the day, basically, we as women are made to feel like a mans property. Our husbands think for us, they decide basically everything. I feel there were more examples of rarity in regards to husbands applying the scripture in a loving manner. I feel that in most cases, husbands, including mine would use their headship to dictate the way the family was to be run. I remember when I was in the process of leaving, my ex made the statement that he should of never allowed me to work outside the home. He felt this gave me a worldly view. My ex also told me he never understood why I left, because we didn’t argue. Of course we never argued, it wasn’t worth my breath to even try and make a suggestion in regards to anything I knew he’d consider out of his comfort zone. I was in complete and absolute subjection, so I held no power within my marriage. It was what he wanted, when he wanted it and how he wanted it, even down to rendering sexual dues. It was all about him. It’s what he wanted to make him feel good and satisfied, never what I wanted or needed.

I was the capable wife. I worked hard and he was the JW husband who accepted all my love, all my efforts and made me feel as though it wasn’t enough. I owed him. Even to this day he feels I deserve nothing, or very little out of the marital assets because 1, I didn’t make the kind of money he did over the course of our marriage and 2, I chose to leave. My ex was even counseled by the elders when we first split up and told he needed to support me, he chose not to. Nothing ever came of him not complying with their direction, they were merely words. He’s still in good standing within the church and I’m shunned by most. He took his role as man of the house to the extreme. Even after our divorce, he still is trying to negotiate the court orders. He’s threatened me by way of saying he’d rather quit his job then pay me support. He makes remarks such as “If I don’t accept his deal, then I’ll end up with nothing”, because he is going to retire this next January. His mind set is that because he’s a man, he’s worthy of much more than me, a mere woman, his ex.

As a woman raised in a male dominated religion, I still struggle with my own inner demons. Sometimes, even to this day, I will ask John to make the decision for me. He always tells me he can’t do that. What he does say is that he will work with me to come to a decision. He will talk it out with me, he will show me the pro’s and con’s, but he won’t think for me. I’m so blessed to have a man who sees this huge defect in me. The defect of having a problem thinking for myself and not taking advantage of it. How easy it would be for him to make my decisions, but he instead wants to simply be my partner and help me see that it’s okay to make some of my own choices. When I make the wrong choice, he never says “I told you so.” He says let’s see what we can do to fix it.

When you are raised in a cult or religion that is all about men and men being head and served, it does damage to the women followers. I am thankful to be free and I’m more thankful to have a man that wants to work as a team rather then being the dictator of his home. I don’t feel by any means that all JW men are dictators or belittle their wives, nor do I think they feel they are superior to them, but there is a big group of those men that take the teachings of Watchtower to the extreme. Leaving the religion was hard and leaving my husband was difficult, and the jury is still out on which one was harder, but I hope through more upcoming blogs, that I can help women of Watchtower and those who have left Watchtower find their worth and maybe share some of the hardships I’ve faced because I left. Once your out, you lose the support systems within. Being shunned you lose friends and family. The men of Watchtower, the GB, make it clear that if you leave you aren’t welcome anymore, that is, unless you chose to come back to the organization. I’ll talk more about that in another blog. For now though, I do hope that this is the beginning of putting my story out there and how hard it is if you chose to not only leave your husband, but the ORG too.

The journey is a difficult one, and at times, I do miss the support system I had within the religion, however, being free to love life and love others unconditionally, it outweighs the difficulties I face. I’m not here to encourage you to leave you spouse or to leave the church, I’m simply here to share the things I’ve learned, the mistakes I’ve made so you can maybe picture what it would look like in your world should you chose to leave either. Maybe you can fix the problems at home or maybe you can find the strength to even stay within the organization and be able to navigate your life a little easier. For me leaving my husband and religion, it does present many difficulties, but having my freedom certainly outweighs what I’ve lost.

Well my dear family and friends, I do hope you are all doing well and staying safe. Thank you for your patience during my blogging break. Please keep those comments coming, I love hearing from you all and don’t forget, until next time, Love Life++