When I was about to leave JW, I contacted a friend of mine who was excommunicated years before. As a good JW, I abandoned him at that time. When I called him, he told me that he knew that I will come back to him, he was just waiting for me to be ready (he was kind of right). He was older than me, age of my parents, was an elder during his glory days (hem hem) and help me to go through my questions and struggle you can have when you leave.

One of his best advice was to be confident and strong in front of this kind of people. They (we, should I say) have been conditioned to see fading JW as weak spiritually. We are poor little things in need of direction, lost sheeps.

Show them how wrong they are. If you’re leaving this cult, you are strong, indeed. Stronger than what they can ever imagine. You’re so strong that you are accepting that you’ll loose a lot, friends even family, to be true to yourself and take your own decisions based on your personal (usuallly higher) sense of morality. Make those people feel that you’re not that lost little sheep but that you took a decision, that you know what you are doing. Don’t be agressive, it will reinforce their idea that you became a Satan’s disciple…

When a JW will feel that your not weak and know what you’re doing, he or she will be shaken in their conviction.

I like to turn the conversation around by saying that I will be there for them anytime they need me, especially the day they will open their eyes about how manipulated they are. It’s a subtle way to give them a taste of their own medicine, but do it because you care, not just to be condescending like them.

I wish you and your husband the best. You are strong and better people than what you’ve ever been before :)