Hello everyone. Today I “missed” my first meeting willingly where I didn’t zoom or anything. Circumstances dictated the timing a bit, but here I am now. Now for a little backstory.

I was born in. I’ve known nothing else in my life. When I was 15, my little sister who was about 2.5 years younger ended up getting baptized. I felt like since she can do it, so can I. So at the next assembly when I was 16 I ended up getting baptized. Right away I started doing microphones and helping with sound. By the time I was 18 I was even an attendant at the meetings. I thought it was great I was able to do so much! It helped me feel important.

Not long after being baptized my family took a trip to New York to visit the HQ. I distinctly remember getting asked by a younger couple, who my parents knew somehow, if I hd any crushes on any nice JW girls back home. Before I could say a thing, my parents jumped in with something like “Oh No! He has no interests in anyone do you!?!” This give you the mindset of my parents, thinking that was 16 I had no interest in girls at all. I was the perfect little JW child and things like that never crossed my mind.

At 20 I started dating my now Ex (first GF I’d ever had) and was married by 21. We never actually had sex before getting married, but had fooled around a bit. Looking back I honestly feel like we were just rushed to marriage so we could have sex. All other thoughts were pushed to the side. We ended up having 2 kids, which are the absolute best thing to come from the marriage, so no regrets in that.

Come COVID both the Ex and I started having doubts about things, but other than a few conversations it was pushed under the rug. Easy to do when everything was over Zoom. I won’t get into exact details in the post (DM me if you truly want to know more), but early 2022 she decided she was done, cheated on me (emotionally, as well as over FaceTime calls with her virtually messing around) left me and filed for divorce, which is now final. Right after she told me she wanted to separate I thought that becoming a “good” JW again could save it. Honestly, what pushed me over the edge to where I am now is how the elders and other “friends” dealt with the situation. Seeing how they can’t seem to see things how every other person, including my therapist, saw them blew my mind.

It was never my intention to leave, or look for anything to convince me, but here I am. Now I’m looking more into things such as this subreddit, read the Crisis of Conscience. How was I so gullible for so long.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. I obviously can’t put everything I wanted to on the post, as it would be a book. I’m honestly a bit lonely, with being recently divorced, and only having my kids every other week. But I’m trying. Also, this has made me realize how conditional the “friends” I’ve had over the years have been. Not bad people, just so….conditioned. Any words of advise would be appreciated!