married

After we got married, she said that she wanted to go back to her church. I told her how I felt, but she was determined. I have an open mind so I gave it a chance. By this time I had done some research on the religion and asked her about it, she insisted that it wasn't anything like what I had read. So we went to a meeting. The first thing the speaker started talking about was how all other churches were wrong and they were right. Then the speaker began bragging about how after area floods that some Witnesses had been displaced from their homes and that they were the first ones back into their houses. This was due to other Witnesses helping them. He said that it was months before the other non-Witnesses were back in their home. I was offended and shocked by the things that they were saying. I was raised a Christian and had never heard anyone say such bad things about other people in a church, or even be proud of bad things happening to people in other churches. I have always heard people talk about helping people not in the church or religion, not being almost happy that other people were doing without. I confronted her about this and she seemed shocked that I felt this way.

I went to some more meetings. I remember sitting there and the speaker was telling how Jesus was not inside of us and that it was made up by other churches. He quoted a bible passage I believe in 1 Corinthians. I read past his scripture and found on the same page where it said that "Jesus is in you". Note, I use the NIV bible and the New Word Translation says "Jesus in union with you".

I started trying to show her what the Bible really said. She got mad and I got mad because she would deny that the Bible says what it says. One day she came to me and said that I had abused her. The abuse being that I was persecuting the Watchtower organization. Then she told me that if I didn't become a Witness, that she would divorse me. She said that she would give up me and her daughter for "The Organization". Before then, she and other witnesses had told me that the family comes first for witnesses. I asked her about this and she said that she guessed that it really didn't after all. I asked her where the choice was to become a witness. She said that there was none which is something else that I have been repeatedly told by witnesses. She gave me a paper to sign saying that if I would become a witness then she would not divorce me.

For me the family does come first. Divorce comes after every possible avenue has been exhausted. So, I signed the paper to save my family.