Leaving high-control religious organizations like Jehovah's Witnesses can have devastating effects on marriages, as these organizations often teach members to hate former members and create environments where individuals must suppress their true selves to maintain standing, leading to situations where spouses may prioritize organizational loyalty over their relationship, even to the point of filing false accusations or legal charges against those who leave.
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I'm here with Tristan. He's going to share his story, and he'd like to do so anonymously, and I don't blame him. He's told me a lot when we had a conversation last week, and uh I told him, "I think everybody needs to hear this because it's it's really powerful. It's really interesting and uh range of emotions it gave me. So uh Tristan, go ahead and introduce yourself and share your story.
>> Hey DH. Uh hey, name's Tristan and uh yeah, this is definitely a indeed a very crazy story. Before I tell it, I just want to share this disclaimer.
This story is not meant to paint Veronica, my ex, in a negative light, but rather it's to exhibit the nefarious actions one will take when they're under the influence of an organization that teaches you to hate former members, even if that person is someone you're married to. And also, I will be talking about some potentially triggering subjects. uh such as addiction issues and a situation of a sexual nature. This is not told with the purpose to offend, but rather to elucidate the complexity surrounding my story. So, yeah, now that that's out of the way, um yeah, my name's Tristan. I'm 32. I was raised a fourth generation witness. My great-grandmother got involved in this faith in the 1950s. So she this wasn't casual. My uh grandmother and subsequently mother they kind of got involved with it as did my mom's stepdad. And as for my dad's side uh his mom got involved with it in the pre-1975 era. And so my parents were definitely born in and me as for me, yeah, it was something that was very much a part of my identity growing up.
During my infancy, one thing that my parents always pointed out was that I had always had an issue with fear.
Like my mother can recall times of when in the middle of the night I would wake up crying. I was had many nightmares and stuff and so and just o over little things like as a toddler it just would always I just would get scared. I was just a very fearful person and so naturally growing up in a religion with a fear-based teachings uh definitely was probably not the best thing for me. In fact, I remember when I was 10 years old at the uh 2003 convention when they dropped the learn from the great teacher book that uh lovely Armageddon picture on page 243 that I still can't believe that they put in a children's book. I still got that ch that book right here next to me. And uh yeah, I I remember vividly seeing that picture and the message I gleaned was that if I don't join this organization, if I don't give what I can to God, this is going to be me. I am probably going to be one of the victims in this illustration. So yeah, kind of a little lovely that I got to see that. Um definitely had a deep psychological imprint on me.
Uh, I was homeschooled for a period. um half I went to regular school here and there, but it was kind of like a almost like a I don't want to say it was like a judges situation where like I I would go to I was in off and in and out of home school and public school where things would go I'd go to public school things would be okay for a while then they wouldn't be good and then I would come back out and I would come out and then I'd home school for a while then that would get boring And when I got too born, I'd say, "Hey, mom, can I go back to public school?" Then I got I'd go back to public school. And the cycle, this repeated probably about four or five times growing up. And uh you know, growing up in the organization, I'm not going to lie, it was a I had a pretty decent time. Um I made some friends here and there, none of which really stuck.
And I can remember the first time I ever experienced a red flag was I had an uncle who has been dysfellowship probably three or four different times.
And I remember when I was around oh probably around 10, the same age as when that learn from the great teacher book came out. My uncle was dysfellowshipped at the time. And my uncle was a very extroverted, sociable character. And I remember when meetings would get out, he would always excuse himself and leave.
And I remember just one day just turning over to my mom and just asking after me, "Why is he leaving?" And my mom told me, "He's not supposed to talk with us now."
And something just didn't shift right with me in my brain when she said that >> that there's just something not right about that. There's just something not right about a grown 30-some year old man whom I know outside of the Kingdom Hall to be very sociable just excusing himself and dismissing himself like he's just not wanted. So this was my first I can recall my first moment of concern in the organization.
But you know I just disregarded it. I you know just keep trucking along. Just always tried to be that steady Eddie be.
So I got baptized at age 15 teenager.
How I managed to survive was I was a yes man with everything from the what does the Bible teach book. My father was an elder so you can imagine how fun that was. I remember uh we went through that book and you know I was never I remember growing up you know getting disciplined a lot and my dad being the elder he took me I think it was probably around 12 or 13 my dad took me in the back room with like the coordinator and we went over a few questions and my dad's looked the guy in the eye and said yeah he's a good kid at home. he's great. And even though I knew the answer was not really that case. And so I I became I remember becoming an MBaptized publisher then.
And uh so I I studied the what does the Bible teach book and at the same time read the Bible, the New World Translation for the first time. just sped read through it, which looking back, I kind of wish I had uh taken my time to read the Bible with more more intent and digest it more rather than just shoving it down my throat constantly. Because had I done that and probably thought more about things more critically, I definitely not have probably made some of the decisions I made so hastily like getting baptized at age 15. And so, but uh yeah, so I ended up getting baptized at 15. And uh I remember after getting baptized then I was homeschooled for the next few years.
>> And so yeah, as a child growing up and developing into a teen, I developed this mindset that being good meant fitting not necessarily a mold. Well, I meant fitting a mold and not necessarily being honest. And this is something I believe is a major problem in the organization we see, especially with youths, because when young people like myself are constantly subjected to a holier than thou system, self-preservation becomes an ally, even if it's to their own detriment. And in my case, it was certainly to my detriment because I would suppress a I I don't feel like I was I mean I'm was allowed a safe space to do dumb teenage stuff and so I would keep it to myself. So went to so when I was around 18 I ended up doing running start so this way I could graduate with a associates degree with my diploma and I ended up going to a technical college for that and about 18 living the life of a witness I you know got involved with a worldly woman and I I remember smoking some weed and I did all this while still trying to maintain the identity as a witness. So yeah, I mean from this point I was definitely living a d this is where I first learned to live a double life. And it's just crazy to think about that because I remember like the last time I ever got high on weed, still 18 at the time. I remember like >> when I walked away from the group I was smoking from. I remember getting into my car and not being able to drive because my high was just so bad. My vision was all screwed up. And I remember I had this like massive like trip in the middle of the parking lot for about a half hour. And I remember praying to Jehovah in this meltdown like, "Oh, Jehovah, please help me. I'm sorry I smoked weed. I'll never do it again."
And and and honestly, I I still to this day have never smoked weed. Actually, I that's a promise I made to him then. I still technically plan plan to keep and I just yeah I mean it was just bad trip.
You don't do that kind of stuff.
Christian men don't make the same mistake twice. That's definitely something I've had to learn the hard way. And it's interesting around the same time when I was 18 despite my antics when I was in college.
I started having panic attacks around this time whenever I would go to the Kingdom Hall. Um my anytime I was in the Kingdom Hall, I'd be sitting down and it'd be like 30 20 30 40 minutes into the session, my hands would get palm, my temple would start to sweat and all of a sudden my mind felt like it was doing like a 100 jumping jacks all within five seconds. And and I just I remember I'd have to excuse myself. I sometimes would just go to the drinking fountain to get a drink, but other times I'd have to go outside and walk around and catch some air. I don't know what it was, but some part of me internally did not feel like I should be living the life I lived while showing up to this holier than thou atmosphere. So, but I still endured. I you know I I managed to just repress all this I sinful behavior and I learned that this was not something that was good because I you know instead of confessing I learned to hide my behavior and it was to preserve my reputation and it was living a double life or rather putting on I'd put on like a JW mask and once I wasn't around the atmosphere of the Kingdom Hall I would take that mask off and So, and around that same time, I remember my younger brother was having issues with pornography himself as parallel the same time I was having issues with it, too. I remember there were probably four or five or six different instances where he had to go meet with the brothers and every time he came back he always looked very depleted and it just it it was just like he never looked like he was truly encouraged and I know he was trying to break a habit but at the time that's not how it seemed from my angle and also it didn't help At the same time, the organization was also dropping video propaganda.
At least two of them that I can think of where it was encouraging parents to shun their dysfellowshipped child. One of those videos I can recall was the Sonia Ericson video, you know, the infamous one where the girl was calling her mom and the mom >> saw her calling and put the cell phone down. And the other one was the story about a kid named Levi who ended up getting dysfellowshipped and the mom had to like cut him off. And it was weird like they compared him to like being like Kora, Nathan, and Byum when they like stood up against Moses and how they needed to take sides with Jehovah, which was looking back I remember thinking, "Yeah, that was a very very powerful illustration." But we're talking about a a a youth basically who's in their probably late teens, early 20s who okay, they're sleeping around. That's not okay. But the parents have to literally cut them off. I I just I remember just watching those videos and it just it wasn't helpful to me at the time. It it just made me further suppress a lot of my my issues. So yeah, I mean it it definitely caused me generated more fear in me rather than trust and reinforced the idea that confession would automatically lead to punishment and not to healing. So, when I was taking moral inventory through the fifth step, because I did go to a I ended up going to AA, which I'll get to later in this story, but I learned that I've always wanted to feel accepted by my peers. And if I'm under threat of having my own parents disown me through some organizational shunning policy, I had to steer clear from that route, no matter the cost.
I know the organization they have their own definition of dishonesty in the organization they call it theocratic warfare and I so I kind of felt like I was having my own kind of situation of theocratic warfare only I knew I was just shooting myself in the foot mentally but I I pressed on. I was into soft porn. It was a coping mechanism that quieted myself and in reality only deepened my internal conflict. And so when I went through my 20s, I realized the system didn't make me more righteous. It made me better at hiding.
So, and that also said I remember when I was in my early 20s, I dated I had my first relationship with a girl. We'll call her Shenise. Her name's not Chenise, but we'll call her Chenise.
And fun trivia fact, she went to Wally Barnett from JW Thoughts congregation.
>> And so that was interesting. I was very much in love with her. That relationship lasted about 6 months. And obviously, I wasn't the best I possibly could have been. I was very, you know, I learned this through my own moral inventory when I was taking moral inventory doing the fifth step and stuff that in that particular relationship. I was very manipulating. I like to have control over things and obviously she was a little older and discerned, hey, this guy, you know, kind of a bit of a red flag. And I remember my mom kind of got on her about some stuff which I mean that the past is the past but that breakup happened when I was about 22. It it was my first real heartbreak you know first cut is the deepest.
Around that same time I learned that a way of soothing myself was through alcohol. Like I developed an alcohol.
That's when I started to really drink alcohol and get into that dependence mode. It really helped heal myself emotionally.
Obviously, I'm not one now, but it was definitely that was definitely the time when I first learned that I could depend on that after that relationship. So, fast forward about several years, I eventually met Veronica outside of the organization. I had DM'd her on Instagram and I remember she was this she was the most beautiful Hispanic woman I think I'd ever seen. She had the most h just the most beautiful eyes, the most respplendant smile, and she had short hair, and she was thick, and she just she was just the most gorgeous thing I think I'd ever seen. And so I I remember DMing her and she responded back and, you know, next thing we know, we kind of hit it off. And I didn't know right away she was associated with the witness organization.
But she eventually told me when she mentioned like assembly stuff and I was like, "Oh, okay." I remember it her being so her being associated with the organization wasn't a huge like selling point at that time. I remember when I met her, it was right when co happened.
So in 2020 and and it was kind of interesting during that time for me because first time like actually being away not being on this continuous hamster wheel of constantly having to give for the organization and constantly go to meetings, constantly go out in service, constantly put up this front line. It was it was interesting to finally be away from that. And uh I remember feeling very lonely at that time and uh I h was having of course you know this is also kind of I had also got my own house at that time so I had my own place and I developed a relationship with the security gal at my job. So that was uh that was something I definitely should not have been doing by JW standards. But anyway, when I met when I met Veronica, I ended up dumping this this person. And uh my so my relationship with Veronica was very abbreviated.
And when I say abbreviated, I'm talking she was a 90-day fiance. You might be like, well, why was she a 90-day fiance?
Well, I'll tell you why. There was a specific elder, and this guy was a bully elder in her congregation. She lived in she lived a couple states away from me.
And Veronica was not baptized at the time. And for those of you who probably aren't Jehovah Witnesses listening to this, if you're wondering why Veronica, who was deeply associated with the witnesses, was not baptized, and for some reason that hey, it's not matching up and lining with how we see baptisms are conducted in the book of Acts. Well, it's because you have to basically prove yourself worthy rather than just walking into a local sermon saying, "Hey, I'd like to get baptized." Okay. If witnesses, you got to like put in some effort like, "Okay, well, we need you to put in this amount of time for field service. We need you to show up, do the fancy song and dance, and do this for months on end." And when I met Veronica, she was in the process of doing that. And so there was a certain elder who had her under her wings. When he found out about the relationship, he not only vehemently disapproved of it, he went so far as to Oh man. I mean, I always hate it when people weaponize scriptures against each other. I remember 2 Corinthians 6:14 was very hammered into our brains. He went so this this guy went so far as to not only threatening to delay her baptism, but he also went so far as to contacting my elders from two states away.
Wow. Contacted my elders and one of them ended up calling me one day because remember this was during COVID. They wasn't like they could show up at my house and he called me up during that day and he asked me about the relationship and I was honest with him.
I said, "Yeah, I am dating this person.
she's a sister from such and such hall in such and such state. And this elder then said to me, "Okay, so because you're choosing to date someone who is not a witness, we are going to be stripping you of your Zoom privileges because they had let me run Zoom at the time because I was no longer considered quote exemplary, which now not being considered exemplary, that's essentially like being marked minus the announcement and soft shunning. So, it's kind of like privately being marked because you're kind of going against what the elders are suggesting you do. And I told him, I just said, "No, like I'm not I I really love this person and she's a girl that I've always wanted to see in any kind of woman and I'm not going to just dump her just because you guys feel that I'm not meeting these standards, that she's not meeting the standard." And I remember her calling me up one day after a meeting with that elder and she was just in tears, just balling her eyes out. And it it was just very stressful. And it also didn't help the fact that one of the times she came up she came over to visit me, this same bully elder again called my elders and complained that a she had come to my house or she had come to my house which they found out about because they found her car in my in my driveway.
We had taken my car and we had like drove up the coast uh to you know our little private getaway which >> and uh yeah they called me up and we're like saying hey we saw this uh state this certain car state license plate from this such and such state what's up with that and I was just like oh you know she came up to visit her sisters came and you know so don't worry we have chaperone which that was a lie but uh um yeah so it just it just showed the m the level of surveillance and micromanaging that was upon our relationship that really burdened us. It was not it was far from appropriate. So >> yeah. And how old are you at this point?
>> 27 and she was 26.
>> Oh man. Yeah. It's one thing if you were 16. Okay, I get it. But you're adults at this point. This is nothing but absolute control over your life.
>> Yeah.
>> This is not normal. I I if any witnesses are listening, this is not normal for people to do.
>> Yeah. Yeah. This all happened like uh five and a half years ago now. And yeah, it I agree. It was absolutely just not normal. And I've told my AA sponsor and even my church pastor and a few other people, my church this kind of the same story and they were just like, "Wait, uh that's uh a little bit controlling." I mean, my So, but yeah, you're right.
It's not normal. So anyway, but because of all that pressure, yes, we and also because we did engage in premarital behavior, we rushed into things disproportionately.
Uh went and got a courthouse wedding via Zoom. So that was an interesting experience. And uh you know, and it was and I the reason why I rushed into it was I knew I loved her. I knew she was somebody I wanted to marry and spend my life with. And looking back, I do kind of wish, yeah, it might have been a better idea if we did take our time more and we didn't have that organizational pressure on us because we I don't looking back, we just did not properly have God in our marriage. And so because we didn't, the first year of our marriage was decently stable. But fast forward, you know, from all the honeymoon phase and all the good times and her moving into the house and her making the house her own and talking about starting a family, um, I micro cheated on her. And by micro cheating, I meant like I had an old flame reach out to me one day and expressed to me, you know, via Snapchat and she was telling me how she wished she had swooped me up when she had the chance.
And although I didn't like, you know, we didn't like meet meet up and hook up and I didn't like we didn't exchange nudes or anything, but there was definitely some emotion exchange that was not appropriate and which of course Veronica going through my phone one day did find out about. So you can probably imagine how embarrassing that was. and she encouraged me to go talk to the elders.
Keep in mind, she was not even baptized at this point yet. They delayed her baptism for another year because of the whole circumstance. And yeah, and so this all happened. And I remember I refused because I was just so ashamed. I believed at the time that the only valid path to forgiveness was going to and confessing my sins to these suited men in a closed conference room was the only way I could truly gain God's forgiveness. But I just did not trust that process.
>> Well, it's such a weird process really.
And I I'm not making light of of any sexual sin. Uh the Bible's pretty clear on how we should handle all relations before marriage and and during during marriage. But what's odd is you have to go in and confess the sin of whether it be adultery. Let's just say adultery.
But you don't have to confess other sins of say lying or say you know cheating in some way. I don't mean under a woman. I mean like under taxes you know something that people would say okay well this is a little it's not as bad. But God views all sin the same. Sure, there's different consequences on in our world.
They're going to create different amounts of disorder. I mean, I can lie to someone, but if I go hurt someone, there there's a different consequence for that. I mean, both are emotionally hurting, but one's physically hurting.
So, what kills me is that you have to go confess these specific sins because what's happened is that the organization has said these certain acts, they're bad. everything else is fine because they don't want you to to think that you're actually a sinner because if they can keep you on say, "Oh, we're not going to cheat on your wife." Well, it's okay because you really are a sinner.
Sure, you'll make mistakes here and there, but you're not a sinner in need of a savior. You can be not not saying they're going to say you can be perfect, but you can be this righteous person.
However, the Bible says no one's righteous. All of our sins mark us, and we need the blood of Christ to completely cleanse us from that. So they've created this atmosphere in which you think I've sinned. It's like, dude, you sin every minute. Do you perfectly love God and love neighbor perfectly every single day? No. No, you don't. You fail miserably. So why aren't you always in elder confession? It's because it's not about breaking the Bible's rules.
It's about breaking their rules, not breaking the organization's rules. So it has very little to do with God and more to do with hey you got to do these certain things to make you a a current member and also to give the illusion that you're really being a Christian.
>> Yeah. Yeah. And I mean in this circumstance definitely the whole who Jesus whole thing about like whoever looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery in his heart. I mean I was definitely past that point. So, but yeah, and I mean I I was just I I was just hurting so much inside that I did probably the stupidest thing I could have ever have done at that time and that was I turned to alcohol. It became my coping mechanism. And so, yeah, my that was when my alcoholism got really bad. I mean, don't get me wrong, I was a regular drinker. I drink probably on the weekends and stuff and but you know eventually the weekends became like Tuesday and Wednesday night and then next thing you know I was bartering with it on inappropriate times to a point where like 5:00 a.m. on nonwork nights I'd go out sneak to the kitchen up in the cabinet get a little and uh I'd come back to bed and Veronica would complain about there being tequila on my breath.
that that happened probably multiple times and and it definitely showed because when I look back at pictures of myself from back in 2022 and 2023, I had gained an unhealthy amount of weight. Uh I was at my absolute heaviest 298 pounds. My face was incredibly bloated. I looked like a human version of the blob. Like I just I I just I I did not look healthy at all. Like I mean Yeah. So I mean I guess you could say here was where my JW mask had truly been ripped off because I mean when you're married to somebody I mean they tell you when you're even grinding your teeth in your night. They tell you what you're even saying in your dreams. And this all the the drinking just escalated significantly to a point where the same week of my 30th birthday, I remember we door dashed, you know, this on this specific occasion I we door dashed some Burger King and I had some like orange flavored gin that I had put in my soda while she was away and I had to go do something and when I came back the soda was gone. And I was like, "Where'd the soda go?" And she said, "All right, Tristan, sit down." I sat down. And that's when she told me, "Look, what was in that soda?" And I was honest. I told her, "Uh, some gin." And obviously, she didn't know that I had gin in the house.
And that's when she said, "Okay, look, I'm done here." And just for preference, there had been multiple numerous occasions where in the past I had woken up vomiting in the middle of the night.
Uh I she had clearly seen me pass out a few times and vomit a few times. It just it was just unhealthy. And so this was the specific moment where she had finally just flipped her lid and finally just said, "If I ever find alcohol in this house ever again, I am packing my bags and leaving."
Uh it it seemed like a simple request. I was like, "Okay, so no more bringing alcohol in the house. Okay, so I can still drink alcohol. I just can't drink it in the house. So, you can imagine how that bartering system went because I remember I would about 6:00 a.m. on nonwork days, I'd get up, go to the gym on the way home from the gym, yeah, gym, quote unquote, stop at 7-Eleven, pick up a White Claw, and I'd come back to the house. I'd get my 24 ounce fix and the day was good. And that's how I maintained it. I did this probably five, six days a week on average. Yeah, I was consuming this stuff at a very unhealthy rate.
And so I remember at that time I started seeing a therapist because she there was a certain therapist I had known of and she recommended I go and see him. He was an elder surprise surprised. I I've seen other therapists since then and but this guy specifically was and so I was seeing him in therapy sessions and there was one particular weekend where about a month after she had sat me down and said, "Hey, I'm leaving if you don't quit drinking, she had she went back home for the weekend to go see her family."
And so what did I decide to do while she was gone? Well, after I took her to the airport, I immediately drove down to the local Total Wine and More, bought about $200 worth of booze, and went and had a real binge of a weekend.
When I went and saw my therapist, uh, he asked me, "Had I been drinking?"
And I confessed to my recent rivalry.
And shamefully, I can still see him resting his chin into his hands. And he said that I was no different than a businessman who cheats on his wife while he is out of town and justifies it by stating that it happened in a different zip code.
>> Sometimes people just say stuff to you and it just kind of makes you go, "Huh?
Yeah. I And and you know, we talked about other stuff that day, but I just remember that illustration he gave me really stuck with me. And so I remember came home that night. I remember I had like a big giant fifth of Everclear. Started guzzling that down.
And I don't remember what happened the rest of that night. I know it was pretty crazy. When I woke up the next morning, I remember having that 10 lb hangover.
And I remember looking at my Everclear and there was probably like about an inch at the bottom >> and I looked at that Everclear and shook my head and just dumped the rest of it down the drain. And I don't know what what caused me to like just snap, but something had changed in me that day.
The inspiration to do something different really changed. And so there's a guy I work with, my AA sponsor. I'll call him Tom. He's uh he mainly attends Narcotics Anonymous, but also is very well associated with Alcoholics Anonymous.
He's had 27 years sober. Um I knew of him being like a sponsor and uh I went to him and I confessed. I told him that like, "Hey, I have a really bad problem drinking. I really want to stop. And this this man was a I found out later a Christian. And to me at the time he was I I want to call this man my good Samaritan because at that time I had you know told other elders about my drinking issues at the time and they met with me a couple times. They offered me counsel points and you know that was that. But I mean, yeah. I mean, I I'd go to the Kingdom Hall, they'd give me some council points, but it was nothing more than that. This guy after work picked me up and drove me to a local AA meeting at a local church, which I remember at the time was also it was a Lutheran church.
So, I was also remember at the time, you know, because JWSR always had this aversion to anything from Christendom, but I walked in anyway. And uh and I remember yeah it just it was a very eye-opening experience for me and I remember that very night I did confess to being Kristen alcoholic and uh I remember the guy like high-fived me and uh yeah I was just I mean to just confess something like that it was big.
So the core message I walked away was I needed to get closer to my higher power.
And I read the AA book and I was going I was having meetings with this guy which was kind of good for a time and uh so yeah basically first step is admitting you have a problem. Second step is addressing your higher power and third step is being like hey this higher power can help me. So yeah I turned to Jehovah and I turned to essentially Jehovah's organization.
Why wouldn't you?
>> I remember at that time, yeah, of course. I mean, hey, I'd been in it for 30 years at this point. Why not?
Obviously, I've been just uh trudging along. Why would I not want to sink myself into it? Yeah.
And then, and here's how I came to this was I started like doing what they don't really encourage you to do. I started looking into the history. I remember I digested the Proclaimer's book. I read the Revelation book again. I uh what other book did I read? Oh, yeah.
I think I read The Harp of God at that time. I can't even believe I went down that road. And yeah, just uh the more objective research I started doing was like, okay, I mean, this organization seems kind of cool. Like, we've done some kind of cool stuff. I mean, it's seemed like it's been kind of a pretty decent movement.
I remember something I also did at that time was for our fourth wedding anniversary, I had got me and Veronica uh custom Bibles, bound Bibles. And so with our names and baptism dates on it and we and so yeah, I encouraged her to read the Bible more and I myself started reading the Bible more. And when my second child was being born, because we have two children now, um when the second child was the first child we had was when I was dealing with a lot of my alcoholism and second one was after Id gotten clean and you know things things looked uh things look like they were going to go up from here. But little did I know things can change very fast especially when you actually sit down and read the Bible. I started actually I remember during the two months I was on paternity leave I just ate that Bible up. I read the Bible and something I would do was every morning when I would get up first thing I would do is I would pray and I started asking for the Holy Spirit.
not Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit.
>> And it was something I had never done before. And I'm reading God's word, and you don't really walk away with JW doctor in your head when you read the Bible.
>> The best cure.
>> Yeah. Well, it was an unexpected best cure. And uh yeah, I mean Jesus being Michael the Archangel, I mean honestly the amount of times he even in the New World Translation I I started to notice like there were certain moments where like it did refer to him as God but then like it'd be kind of depleted and I'm like, "Huh, this isn't making sense." So, I remember I got myself a King James copy of the Bible and I remember going through that and kind of comparing and that's when I was like, "Okay, I see what's going on." Like, you ever seen like a situation where like somebody tries to cover up their tracks, but they pretty much only do like a halfdeent job at covering up their tracks. like some of the tracks aren't there, but then some of the tracks are still kind of there. You just got to kind of look here and there. Yeah. So, that's um that's what I kind of saw in the New World Translation Bible. And just looking through other Bibles, you know, Christendom Bibles, that only just was invalidated my thing, my faith, and I was like, "Okay, hold on a second."
I remember the very first scripture I ever read that cracked the windshield of my JW lens was Isaiah 96.
>> A child has been born to us. A son has been given to us and the princely rule will welcome be upon his shoulder. His name will be called. We know these four words. wonderful counselor, mighty God, eternal father, prince of peace.
>> Yeah, >> that mighty God part. It was just it was just one of those moments where when I read that, I was just kind of like, what the This is Jesus. Hold on. This is a prophecy about Jesus.
>> In the Old Testament.
Yeah. In the next chapter, there's a reference to Jehovah being God, the mighty God. In the next chapter, the remnant of Jacob. It's like what the he so >> yeah even going further witnesses will ignore those other names where it says everlasting father prince of pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe pe peace wonderful counselor all those are given to Yahweh in Isaiah you just have to read the whole book which is unfortunately most most witnesses don't do the idea of being wonderful means that you you are indescribable that you you are unattainable like that's something that's a quality that belongs to God alone everlasting father, father of eternity. Well, how can you be a father of eternity if you yourself are not eternal? So, there's so many problems with their theology if you actually read the Bible, which is why they don't want you to read it. They want you to read the watchtowers.
>> Yeah. And and you know just something else to think about on that lines was uh I remember bringing that point up to uh an elder friend of mine at that time and you know he he of course dropped the uh typical response. Well, excuse me. This is not referring to him as mighty God.
This is the almighty God. And >> here so here here's the thing. Here's the problem with that argumentation.
>> That's henotheism. And if you know anything about henotheism, that's the belief in one almighty god and a bunch of like littleer lesser subservient gods. Correct.
>> And when you read the book of Isaiah, especially, you know, once you get around past chapter 40, >> Isaiah was very much a monotheist. He there was no he was trying to be cons a conservative to all the polytheism and henotheistic ideology that was going on in the kingdom of Judah at the time. And he was just saying, "No, no, no. There's one God, one Yahweh.
He does not know of any other gods. Any that are made of woods, they're they're false gods." So that argument just falls flat, doesn't it?
>> Well, yeah. And and even in when they say the mighty God and versus the almighty like these these words are not like on a scale of well one's mighty one's almighty this is an English translation it's El Shadai and Elgabore.
It just means that God is has great strength and is very mighty and the other one says that he just has a sovereignty above all things. They're two entirely different words in the Hebrew, but they're going to res go back to the English language and say, "Oh, look," and build a doctrine off that.
It's insane. No one in their right mind who wants to take the Bible seriously >> would use that argumentation, but unfortunately, that's what they stand on.
>> Yep. Yeah. AB: Absolutely. And uh yeah so it was that and also just uh you know reading through the gospels I read through them multiple times just reading the gospels for the first time directly I I realized the do the JW doctrine version of Jesus you know in that picture on page 243 of the learn from the great teacher book that really scary picture of Jesus coming down and with all his 144,000 angels and slaying all those people down I the Jesus I was reading about in the gospels that is not like just a totally different Jesus. Like I I and I realized I had been taught a different Jesus not just in who who he is like as a a god but also like who he is character-wise.
And you know I remember when I was talking with my AA sponsor about this.
He said something to me one time. He said this to me recently. This was uh much later after some of the events I'm about to talk about, but he said something to me that really struck me one day. He said, "When you think of Jesus, do you picture him wagging his finger at you or do you picture him wrapping his arm around you?"
>> I've never had somebody ever say that to me. And that was the Jesus I was reading about in the Bible. And you know, you read about the commands he gave us to love one another and it it just was like, wow, like this is like a I mean, yeah, I realized this. So, yeah, I mean, I come long story short, you know, and I'm seeing all these like things that just aren't aligning with JW doctrine and uh and I and something wasn't right at the time. And keep in mind too, this is also around the time when the whole Norway situation was getting a little kind of hectic. And I had grave concerns about the whole I've always well I've always had issues with dysfellowshipping. And I remember in March of 2024, they decided to well, we we all know what happened. like Mark Sanderson came on with his little Norway flag tie and said, "Oh, we're now going to call it being removed instead of dysfellowshipping and miners will have like trials." And I I was I'm just thinking to myself, why wasn't I allowed this when I was going through the situation? I was like 10 years ago when I was having issues with porn and stuff and it just all of a sudden it's like, okay, the situation with Norway is going on. They're obviously connected. Now it's like we're going to relax standards even a little bit. And I just remember thinking to myself, you know what? This was not the decision of the Holy Spirit.
This was a decision of men. I remember just asking myself one day, you know, do I really I got two boys now. Do I really want to raise them in this kind of a system where I myself have had to suppress a lot of my own transgressions?
Not really.
Not really at all. So for a religion who touts itself as the truth and uses the Bible as its rock, their theology proved to not be that solid after all. And so >> no, >> and eventually around that same time, that's when I started looking online. I I remember just snapping one day and what originally got me to look online was there was a former elder who had been dysfellowshipped and he ended up becoming apostate and he went to the sister hall I went to and I ended up watching his video and and I and he was like a real gung-ho elder and I remember watching his video and he's talking about his whole experience when he what he said what really woke him up was when he read Crisis of Conscience and I'm like, huh, okay. And and I had heard about Crisis of Conscience before in the past, but when I heard it again and found out that, okay, there's something in this book that like people that's keeping people like getting people out of this organization. There's obviously something these guys are hiding from us.
And then I found out, oh, hey, it's on Spotify for free. And so fortunately with the job I have, I'm able to listen to music and basically audio books and YouTube videos like yours, which I could listen to up to eight hours a day. And so yeah, I start listen to Crisis of Conscience. I probably listen to it four times. And I'm just like, holy crap, man. Just so there there's a very interesting story in there. I really relate to the whole story with Ed Dunlap reading Romans chapter 8 and recognizing that >> you know what happened to Edward Dunlap is kind of the same thing that happened to me like the B people were reading the Bible and were realizing that it's not aligning with JW theology and these people ended up being cast out of Bethl given this vicious label as apostates and I kind of realized, oh boy, um I've had this spiritual awakening and I am probably going to suffer dearly for this and I didn't realize the extent to which how dearly I would suffer this until like I finally did what I decided to do and I realized I had to tell my wife cuz I realized that time, you know, I had been living a lie with her. I remember because I remember one thing my therapist even said, you know, because I told him about the relationship I had with the security girl at my job and one of the things he said was, "You began your marriage out on a lie." And I did not want to be dishonest with my wife anymore. And so after a family trip one day um in January of 2025, that's when I officially reached the fork in the road for where whether or not I want to get out of this organization or not. And I decided I did. I had actually prayed about it. And so May 1st, 2025, been four months, I had decided I was going to tell her about this.
So what happened was I sat her down and I just told her I just said, "Look, I've been really growing a lot spiritually, but I'm seeing a lot of inconsistency in the doctrine, and it's to a point where I don't think I can in good conscience stay Jehovah's Witness anymore."
And so she instantly starts crying.
And she reached out. I remember her taking my hand. And then within 10 minutes, she says to me, "I need to go. I need to go." And so I'm like, "Okay." She grabs both our kids, basically a 2-year-old and a fourmonth-old, loads them up in the car, and drives off. She ended up driving down about an hour south where she had some an aunt and uncle and some cousins live. And so I remember thinking to myself after she left, I was thinking, "Wow, what just happened? Is this the beginning of the end?"
The next day she called me and she said that she had got a different bank account.
>> Wow.
>> That she thinks that we need to separate. She decided we need to separate. I don't think I can I think we need some time apart to figure some stuff out.
So, I go into panic mode. I'm like, "Holy crap, I need to talk to somebody because I'm all alone. I I I just I and I recognize now I just cannot be alone."
But the problem is I don't want to turn to anybody who's a witness because I know I will not get a safe and objective answer from any witness. I mean, what? No, it'll just be go back to the meetings, read the watchtowwers or threats just if you keep doing this cut.
>> Yes. I mean, what what witness would honestly in their own brainwashed state just support this?
>> Really bothers me is if I had somebody uh come to me at church or a friend or whoever relative and said, "Hey, I'm learning things and whether it be through history or through listening to people on YouTube or whatever, I don't think the Bible's true. I don't think Jesus is who he said he is and just give me all this, you know, I want to say propaganda, but just anti-Christian stuff, right? Um, I wouldn't be like, "Get out of my house. Don't talk to me anymore." I'd say, "Well, what do you have? I want to I want to prove to you that whatever you're listening to is not true. We can follow logic and reason and we can go through each one of these claims, and I guarantee you we can debunk them because this is true, and these things did happen. And I want you to know the real Christ. And I don't want you to get led astray by just what some idiot said on TikTok. So, but what kills me is the witnesses. And I've heard this from multiple people. No, no.
You say that, that's a death sentence.
Like you were saying, this is an instant. No, no, no. Don't talk to me anymore. Shouldn't you out of love? Not just for neighbor, but for your own kin sometimes say, hey, I don't care what your objection is. I don't care how deep it is or how filled with lies it is. We are going to fix it. We are going to sit down. We're gonna go through it. I'm going to show you how that's not true.
No, it's instant. Get away. I don't want to hear you because I do think in the bottom of their psyche they know. I probably cannot defend it. I think it's to protect pride in many, not all. Not all, but in many it is, it is to protect what they hold so dear. Well, it just it just reminds me of that video we had from the convention last year with uh Justin and Chris where Chris sent Justin that article. Hey Justin, I want you to check out this article and he goes to confront him and tells him, "Hey, you need to go talk to the elders." And he's like, and he's like, "Did you even read it?" And he's just like, "Why are you reading that garbage?" He's like, "Garbage? Why is it garbage if you haven't even read it?" and and you know after trying to reason with them and they compared it to you know I couldn't even believe that they compared it to Jesus being tempted by God or Jesus being tempted by Satan and >> such a reasonable thing to say. How do you know it's fake without reading it first? Well, I already know it's fake or because the governing body told me it was.
>> Yep. Yep.
So anyway, but so yeah. So I So anyway, so going back to where I was at, um, so I ended up reaching out to everyone who knew I was a witness, but they these the these people themselves were not witnesses. And this included a friend of mine who moved out of state who also went into AA meetings and recovery. He was actually a former friend from my youth who ended up leaving a while back.
We'll call him We'll call him Marcus. Yeah, we'll call him Marcus. Another one was my massage therapist. And another person was a guy from work. And another one was even like this guy I had seen on YouTube. Uh this this former elder. I ended up talking to him too. And I was kind of talking to all these people and I told him my situation and and in fact, heck, I even remember emailing you actually. And I remember you emailed back and you said that like my email was caught in like your junk folder. And it was a while after I had sent out that email and I remember by that point other stuff was going on. So, I understandably didn't have the time to respond, but uh yeah.
So, I I'm talking to all these people and what what they all kind of said was you need to basically just pump the brakes. Your wife is freaking out. You need to like go and like basically just try to console her and try to like rather than like hitting her with a fire hydrant of information. If you're going to do that, try to mist her because she's in panic mode right now. I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to do that." So, a few days go by and Veronica comes back to the house. She had dropped our two kids off at my parents house and she came back to just privately talk to me.
And so, she tells me that, hey, she still wants to separate. I try to backpedal at this point cuz I'm like, okay, hold on. maybe I just said kind of overstepped my bounds here, but she was still adamant about leaving. So, I'm like crap. So, she ended up having to leave the house cuz she had to go like run some errand, but was going to come back and we're probably going to pick up our kids later at my parents house. And so, while she was away, I ended up calling uh one of the people I had talked to the other day. And this person in particular I had called, he had uh left basically cuz funny story about this guy, he left cuz he had a really bad skin condition. He had to grow a beard because of it and the brothers didn't like that. And so he was just kind of like he got really discouraged about that and so he ended up kind of fading and then after that they dropped the whole beard video and he was just like, "Okay, yeah, I'm I'm done with this crap." So, but anyway, that that's that guy's story. But anyway, he was somebody from my congregation I used to go to with and he was a ministerial servant. And so I called him up. He knew my wife and I told him about what had happened. And you know, I told him what had happened just a minute ago and he kind of was like, "Uh, okay, you need to you need to just pump the brakes. Take this easy. She'll come around." And I was like, "Okay, yeah, I'll do that." So, I head back into the house. 15 minutes later, not even that, the door flies open, runs into the house, and she is irate. She points at the couch and and yells, "Spinit." And so, I'm like, "Whoa."
Okay. So, I go and sit down and she says, "Who are you talking to?" And I have my phone in my hand, and I shake it. I'm like, "Uh." She swipes it, and I just say the person's name, and she's like, "What?" throws my phone on our hardwood floor, shattering it, starts breaking into tears, and then says, "I cannot believe you would treat me. You would do this, Tristan, but you get out of the house. I am so close to divorcing you, it's not even funny." And so I zip out of the house and I can hear the door bolts locking behind me and I'm like, "What in the world just happened?" She had caught me through our doorbell camera talking to this person on the phone and react she knew was an apostate and she reacted she reacted as though she had caught me cheating on her.
>> I I I was just shocked. And so I I Wow.
Yeah. So anyway, so I called up my dad and I told him I just said, "Hey, this happened. She's kind of freaking out right now. Can you bring our kids?" And he ended up saying, "Yeah, we'd bring the kids." And when I got off the phone with him, Veronica sent me a text message saying, "Hey, can you please come back? I'm sorry I blew up on you."
So I go back and uh when I get back, she's on the phone with an elder. As I walk in the door, she then hands the phone to me and says, "Here, you're gonna tell this elder you no longer want to be one of Jehovah's Witnesses." So, I'm like, "Oh, boy." Okay. So, I say, "Hello." And then this particular elder, which we'll call Wesley, he's like, "Hey, Tristan, it's okay. We all got doubts. Can we come on such and such date to talk things over with you?"
And I'm like, "Yeah, okay. We can do that."
So after I got off the phone with them, my parents come, they drop off our two kids, we tell them about everything that's happened, and we agree that, hey, I'm going to talk to the elders. Okay, fine. Make a date for that. The day we talk to the elders comes, we ended up talking to them together. Well, she ended up talking to them in oneonone, and then I ended up talking to them one-on-one.
How that went was pretty interesting.
Um, by this point I have it in my head that hey, we're probably going to get divorced over this. I had felt very depleted emotionally and I'm I I'm kind of like woe is me.
This is not going good. And so I kind of went into this elder discussion with that mindset.
And when I talked to them, I argued that my biggest concern right now was the whole Norway situation. It had really stumbled me. And I remember I read to them James 5:16, which says, "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results." And I read that scripture to them and asked them, "Are you allowed to do this in a Kingdom Hall setting?" And they went silent.
>> They did not have an answer for a few seconds. And then then one of them just started piping up and basically started talking about how you've been in this organization all your life.
Why would you want to leave it? And essentially they mainly argued for loyalty. They argued that I should be more loyal to the organization rather than the argument presented.
>> And at the end of the and then the end of this meeting, I held up my Bible and I said, "Okay, let me ask you this. Can I get by on this alone?" And then one of them instantly said, "No, you can't." So then I turned in the Bible to 2 Timothy 3:15, which says, "You've been taught the holy scriptures from childhood and have been giving and they've given you the wisdom to receive salvation that comes from trusting in Christ Jesus."
You know, it's the scripture that comes right before the all scriptures inspired of God scripture. And he just kind of like just shook his head and whatever.
And then the la and then we talked a bit about the Holy Spirit. I told him about how like how you know when I was encouraged to reach out for my higher power. I started preaching to the Holy Spirit and I told him that I feel like the Holy Spirit convinced me that this religion was just the theology was false. If you got if you got a false theology, you got false worship. And then I remember at one of the and I remember towards the end of it, one of them asked me, "You feel like you have the Holy Spirit, so do you feel like you could be a governing body member?"
>> And I just kind of looked at him kind of confused. It was just like, "Uh, no."
And then the guy just kind of and they just laughed and said, "Well, then you don't have the Holy Spirit."
>> I remember. And that was kind of the end of that conversation. I mean, of course, we addressed like the marital situation and they encouraged me to try to work things out and I I was just but yeah, I just remember that last part of that conversation and I didn't think this at the time, but I thought about it much later. I'm thinking to myself, you know, I don't think this guy understands how the Holy Spirit works.
>> No.
Or how he's read the Bible before. So, repent and you will receive the Holy Spirit. So, are you telling me I haven't repented? Have I not believed in Jesus?
And you will receive the Holy Spirit.
You will be saved. Yeah. This is our seal in Ephesians 1. Do do they even know? No, they don't. No. And that's the thing. We can't be too angry at them because they know Watchtower doctrine.
They don't know what the Bible teaches.
And this the worst part is, as I say all the time, they think they're Bible experts. They've been taught by this organization that they know it better than any Christian.
>> No, you don't. And you know witness doctrine really well. I'll give you that. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. They they know the Bible. They just know a a certain version of the Bible. And it completely like Whitewaters Jesus and his role. And I mean, he's literally that other guy, that other guy, that other no-name. And I mean, it's just so disrespectful. It's like, okay, if like if you know, I think I remember in your Trinity video, you said it best. If you what happens when you deny the deity of Christ and you throw Jesus the son as God out the Holy Spirit tends to go out with him and >> yep >> that was a conclusion I had very much came to and so but anyway yeah so when I ca when so anyway after the elders left Veronica came home that night well excuse me she came home after meeting with them it wasn't night it was actually earlier in the day and she was in a different mood she was no longer despondent She was much more hopeful, zealous, and more willing to try to work things out.
And she tells me, you know, the elders coni convinced me to work this out and stay. And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, everything's perfect. Everything's great. This whole everything that happened over the last few days was just a pipe smoke. So, you know, kind of a little like more irritated with me. She said, you know, I offered, you know, we had a meeting that night. I said, hey, do you want me to take the kids to the meeting? And she's like, no, you don't need to support me going to the meetings. You can support by not going to the meetings. And I was just like, what the heck? And so, >> don't you didn't she want you there?
Isn't that where truth is found? Isn't Isn't Shouldn't that be encouraging?
Please come to the meeting and listen to this truth.
>> Yeah. It was just kind of weird. And so Saturday night, my buddy Marcus calls me from out of state, old JW friend, and he talks with me about how things are going. Marcus was like, "Hey, man. Uh, how how you doing? How things going?" I was like, "Oh, hey man. Everything's been everything's been kind of going decent." And Dave was like, "Cool, cool, cool. Hey, uh, you know, are you guys going to are you so what's going on?
Like you guys is she going to leave you?" And I was just like, "No, we're going to work this out." And you know, we might separate, but who knows? I mean, it sounds like things are kind of a little bit more on track. And he's like, "Okay, man." And and then he jokingly at one point said, "You know, if she ever decides to leave you and take the kids out of state, just remember you can always call the cops on her." And I just kind of laughed. I'm like, "Haha, yeah, I could. Yeah, I could do that, but whatever." I mean, point is, I mean, yeah, that was that.
So, Sunday morning, she shocks me by showing up with 60 pages of separation paperwork and child custody stuff. And I'm like, what in the world?
She then goes through the documents. She says, "This is what I want." Blah blah blah. And in these documents, she ended up accusing me of every bad thing I had ever done in our marriage. She accused me of being a drunk. She accused me of child abandonment.
And she went so far as to even accuse me of domestic violence on three different occasions. The most recent one being the night that we had basically um ba you the la the night prior when when we had last had sex. She said said, you know, I didn't like the way we had sex that night. That was domestic violence. And I'm like, what? I I I couldn't even believe it. And then she's accusing And then she accused me too of conversating with another member in the congregation, saying, "Were you talking to soand so?" And I'm like, "No, I wasn't." Then she asked me, "Well, were you talking and did you talk I heard you talking to Marcus?" And I'm like, "What?" And I'm like, "Yeah, I heard I I bugged your phone. I overheard you talking to Marcus and I didn't like some of the stuff you said. I don't want to stay with you. So, this is what I want to do instead." And she then handed me the pen, the pen, and said, "Here, you're going to sign this, and if you don't sign it in the next five minutes, I'm going to call my sister and tell her I'm not safe." So, I end up signing the paperwork stupidly, and we ended up going to my parents house that night.
Veronica says to declares to both me and my parents, "I've made arrangements to move out. I no longer want to stay with Tristan.
I'm just like, I'm dead. I mean, I She had done this all behind my back. I couldn't even believe it. I'm all alone for the next week. Um, I remember over the next week I'm pleading with her, hey, please give this Masha, think about what you're doing. And she's initially very resistant, says she can't take it anymore. And ultimately, she ended up admitting that it's not your new set of beliefs that has turned me off. It's everything that's precluded that that's just this was just the straw that broke the camel's back. But despite all that, she didn't end up coming around like a week and a half later. She ended up meeting up with me again and she then gave me revised paperwork. This time she ended up taking off the domestic violence stuff, the drunkenness, the child abandonment stuff. She took all of that off. Basically, just all she recommended was, "Hey, I have past addictive behavior. I recommend you see a counselor." It was weird. She had like completely like crashed the other paperwork and like it was like she had a weird change of heart over the week, but she still wanted to separate. I mean, I ended up signing that paper. She ended up filing it, but it was weird. Like she I don't know. She I feel like she had one she she was just one foot out the door but one foot in. And it was like she wanted to work things out. She would off and on then come She was weird. like started coming back to the house, hanging out with me and she'd bring the kids over and it was weird. I felt like, okay, things aren't looking that bad. It was just this oscillation was definitely very way too dramatic on me. And it came to a point where she had to go out of state to her parents again because there was a death in the family. And so she ended up going down there for a week.
And I took her to the airport. I came home from the airport. I remember she was, you know, I didn't really talk with her for a couple days and I FaceTimed the kids that one night and she seemed a little bit more lukewarm that night and the next day she ended up calling me and I asked her, "Hey, when are you going to come back?" And she said to me, "You know, I've had time to think about this and I don't think I want to repair this." And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" And then she says, "You know, Tristan, I really thought about this, and I know you've talked about couples counseling before, and in order for couples counseling to work, both parties want to have to save the marriage." And that's the problem is I don't want to save our marriage. Here we go again. She She's changed her mind.
She wants a divorce. This time, I just I just can't mentally do it. Um, a few days later she ended up flying back unexpectedly and she called me to come pick her up from the airport. I said, "Yes, of course. I'll happily come and pick you up from the airport, pick up the kids."
And so I go I go to do that and on the way back she's just a different person. Something happened when she was in California that just changed her. I'm convinced somebody got in her head. And I told her, I just said, "Look, if we're not going to work things out, I don't want you coming to the house. Like, you're not welcome at the house." And she's like, "Fine, take me to my sister's house." So, I took her to her sister's house about a half hour away.
And I we agreed we'd see the children this weekend. I'd see the children this weekend. We also agreed that she would come to the house and pick some of her stuff up. It's the middle of June. She We agreed that she'd come. She wanted to come on Thursday. I told her, "Hey, can you come on either Friday or Saturday?
This way I'm available and or my dad can come down and just cuz, you know, I'm not okay with her just showing up at my house while I'm away and at work." So I she didn't really like the sounds of that, but whatever. So that Thursday, I ended up going to work. I work swing shifts start 1:00 p.m.
And about 3 hours into my shift at around 4:15, I get a phone call from her unexpectedly. So I answer the phone.
She's I'm like, "Hello." And she's like, "Hey, I just want you to know your iPad was stolen out of the car." And I'm like, "Wait, what it was?" And I'm like, "Yeah, but I went and confronted the the perpetrator and told them I'm going to call the cops on them if they don't return it. And I'm just returning it to you now." So, here you go. Just dropping it off. And then at the very end, she asked me, "Hey, so I heard you're talking to a lawyer. Oh, what's your lawyer's name?" And I thought I was very confused by that off-putting remark. And I said, "Uh, it's so and so." And she's like, "Okay, have a nice day." And hangs up. And I'm like, "Okay, that's weird."
And I I had gotten notifications uh on my phone from the Find My iPhone app. I had been taking the iPad with me to work because I frankly just didn't feel comfortable leaving at the house and I'm and I can now understand why because when I came home from work that night, my house had definitely been gone through. There were children's clothes missing. There were uh bathroom related stuff gone. There were pictures missing. The house had definitely been gone through. And I'm like, "Okay, this is weird." I end up calling my parents and I let them know what was going on. And my parents were just like, "Okay, Justin, that story sounds fishy. You do do they have security at your job?" And I'm like, "Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm going to go talk to them today." So, I end up talking to the security guy and I point to which car is mine on the screen and I said, "Hey, keep your eye on this car from 100 p.m. to 4:15 p.m." And he went to at the 4:15 mark and there she is showing up in a little white Volkswagen.
Uh, so she shows up to return the iPad.
He's like, "Okay, I see what car she's in." I'm like, "Yeah, just keep an eye on it. My car was burglarized. She returned the iPad." Yeah. Uh, he called me an hour later and said to me, he says, "Dude, she broke into the car literally 65 minutes beforehand at 3:09." And I'm like, "You got to be kidding me." So, I realized right then and there she was up to something. She was li she had lied and and and I I don't know what to do. So anyway, so literally right after that, I'm starting my shift when all of a sudden I get this phone call.
Hi Tristan, this is Detective Soandso from Soandso Police Department. I'd like to ask you about an incident that took place at your house on such and such date. Immediately I can just still to this moment just even talking about this feeling that that sinking depressive feeling in my gut.
I instantly knew one thing before he even got into the specifics.
Veronica had not done had not reported to the police because she was under threat. They had done this out of spite. She contacted me to put me in my place.
She had done this to assassinate my character. And I realized I because I had chosen to leave Jehovah's organization. And in her mind, I was no longer considered a man of God, but I was on the same level as a criminal.
Yeah. And therefore, she felt like I deserve to be treated like a criminal.
So, >> well, it's hateful. And again, the Watchtower is very clear. You're supposed to hate the apostate. Yes, >> you're not supposed to love them.
There's not one watchtower that says pray for these people. Love them. It is you hate what Jehovah hates and Jehovah hates apostate. So while they don't come out and say hate the apostate, it's very very heavily implied.
>> Yes. And so, uh, so I ended up, you know, the cop starts asking, the detective starts asking me specifics on what happened on such and such date.
Keep in mind, this specific incident he's asking about happened like five weeks prior. So, right there, I knew this was instantly her basically saying like, "Hey, screw you. I'm going to now turn around and go call this domestic violence again for a second time." So, I I go down to the police station because I want to just clear up matters. Looking back, I I I wish I had talked to a lawyer, but whatever. That's the past now. And I mean, so I I get down there and two cops put me in a room. They start asking me very invasive questions about my bedroom life with my wife. Uh they ask me, "Have I engaged in this kind of particular aggressive sexual behavior before?" And I tell him, "No, I I'm not like this." And after he asks me about all the provocative stuff, he then proceeds to ask me, "So, did you throw out some of her shoes?" And I'm like, "What?" And he's like, "Yeah, she reported that uh some of her shoes were missing when she came to get her stuff."
And I'm like, "Okay, dude. No, >> what does that have to do with your the the crime?"
>> So, well, I remember walking home cuz I I lived like a mile from the police station. I remember just thinking to myself, "What the hell was that all about?"
>> I had never felt so like just shook up and put in my place. And uh so a few days later I I I had seen her one time and it was I saw my kids that weekend and you know we we said nothing to each other about what happened. she knew what she was up to. And so I saw my kids that weekend and few days after that I have three cops that show up at my house one afternoon and I go out there and I'm thinking like, oh my gosh, what now? But what they did was they basically came to say, hey, here's a protection order. You're not allowed to come within a thousand feet of her.
And I finally just looked through everything and I'm just like, "Yep, sure enough, you know, she had accused me of like three different counts of domestic violence and there's all that information about child abandonment and my drunken behavior even though I'd been sober like like a year, well over a year by this point." And I I I just couldn't even believe it. So, I had a protection order on me. And so, what I decided to do was uh getting this protection order, I was automatically also given a domestic violence charge, which that wasn't fun. So, I ended up hiring an attorney and I appealed that. And thank the Lord in heaven, the judge saw right through that and ended up appealing my request. And uh yeah, so the the protection order was lifted. And yeah, I no longer have a DV on my name, so that I'm grateful for that. But the problem was from that point was our relationship was just by this point it was just awkward. We're separated.
And I and I and I had switched it to a divorce by this point, a request for divorce.
Um it's been several months. And the reason why it's been taken so long to kind of get along with was because, you know, because she had accused me of so different thing, so many different things. I had to defend myself and the the attorney cuz, you know, the the sexual abuse charge happened in one county and then she went and filed in a whole another county. So that was real hectic to take care of. But the the attorney ended up make or excuse me the judge ended up making us both go get psych evaluations and that was like a fivemon process. I had never realized just how difficult that was just finding a proper came back fine. She hers came back fine too. So presently we're separated. Only recently did I decide to finally break the ice with her after like almost a year of this whole thing.
We have not talked at all since. And I mean there was a couple times where we exchanged a few emails, but we had never talked in person. It was just about the kids. And finally, I just pul, you know, I pulled her aside. It was just recently, like within the last month, and I just said, "Hey, was this whole protection order and domestic violence thing really worth it?" I mean, because I feel like this threw a Godzilla sized wrench of awkwardness into this whole mess we got. And she said, "I don't regret it." When she said that to me, I'm just like, "Wow."
Okay. So, you're not willing to accept accountability for your actions. And so, yeah, that's uh that's where we're at right now.
>> It's such a shame, too, because I'm sure >> you guys were in love and you I mean, you were >> I'm not gonna say you were perfect.
Um, yeah, obviously you made uh I'm not even going to say mistakes. You made you had a lot of sins and a lot of uh and she had I guess reasons for if she wanted to leave you at other points, she could have biblically, right?
>> Yeah.
>> It would be a little strict. I know you said, you know, you cheated, but it's I would be surprised if somebody broke up a marriage over that, but I'm not saying you should have done it. I'm not supporting it in any way, but again, those are things that you work through as a couple and a lot of marriages do face that. It's unfortunate, but it does happen. It was almost like when I hear this saying you leaving the organization, she probably would have rather you cheat on her a hundred more times than you leave the organization. So, it shows how much power that has over people. It's very revealing to say, "Wow, that sin of what you did is the worst thing that you could have done." And really break it down. It's not saying, "I don't believe there's a God. I don't believe there's a Jesus. I don't believe in the resurrection. I don't believe, you know, in the Bible." It's not saying any of that. It's saying, "I don't think the organization is maybe not God's organization."
They view the organization as equal to God.
>> Yes.
>> What? How dare you suggest such a thing?
And when I say this is a destructive high control group, yes, look what it does to families. You have two children >> who now are going to be in a broken marriage >> because of their father's heinous sin of not being in the organization anymore.
Now, I can't say for sure that uh if you hadn't, you know, struggled with alcohol and pornography that she wouldn't have done this, but it seems from the story that you're telling me of no, it probably would have happened anyway. And the experience I've had, it would probably been the same because that's the amount of control this organization has on people. And it's it's sad that it rips apart families with with no care.
It's, hey, you the reason you're getting divorced is because you don't think the same way I do anymore. I'm I'm not abandoning you. I don't hate you. I didn't you. I don't There's many good reasons to leave somebody over, you know, adultery or abandonment. In my opinion, and biblically, it's assault is abandonment. It hits me at my core for someone who loves being married and has a loving wife that she would want nothing to do with me because I now think differently than her on something where we can live, we can co-weekly live. You want to go to the Kingdom Hall and take the kids, fine. I don't really support it, but I'm going to go live my spiritual journey. You can go live your spiritual journey and we can all come together and maybe we'll learn things from each other and maybe you can get me back in the truth. No. No. Instant gone.
It's just the amount of unlove I'm hearing from your story. And it's not so much you retaliatory.
>> Yeah, it's very retaliatory. It's very hateful is the best word I can say. Um, and it just breaks my heart.
>> Yeah, it breaks my heart. And you know I there is a silver lining to the negativity of this story which I kind of want to kind of bring in kind of to conclude at least you know I've told this just this hideous depressing destroyer story of a very Gatsby JW destroyed marriage that was just so sad.
But you know, here's the good thing that happened was I my relationship with God became better. And you know, so let me kind of tell you about what was happening during the time of, you know, the time we hadn't been talking. Yeah, there was times where I kind of like was really hard on myself and there were things I kind of did for a period where because I I mean I give myself credit now. Hey, I I was going through a dark time. my AA sponsor, um, Tom, wonderful human being.
He never gave up on me. I I kind of quit going to AA meetings for a while. And this guy, man, I mean, you want to talk about nudged by the Holy Spirit. This guy could see something was up. And he pulled me aside one day at work and just said, "Hey, what's going on? I haven't seen you at AA meetings. Are you still doing the staff? like how how much longer do you want to just keep I mean I get it if you want to just stay absent from alcohol but uh obviously I can just tell your your spirit is low man and and I and I'm so tremendously grateful he gave me that push in the right direction and so I we ended I ended up going back to meetings again and that was a slow but short process and finally we decided to go deeper into the steps and uh I told him everything that had happened.
He was just kind of like just shocked like what the heck. And and I had to explain to him, you know, how the JW organization operates and he was just like, "Wow, okay. Yeah, that's a bit controlling." And so after I told him my entire testimony and whatnot, um he then said to me, he encouraged me, well, he said, you know, why don't you start going to church? You know, you need to be around fellow believers. A part of my story I forgot to mention that I left out was uh after I had told Veronica that I wanted out of the organization while she was gone in between that period of her leaving the house for a few days before she came back. There is a church down the street from my house.
It's a Church of Christ big white building uh overund years old. And there I'd always see these cars parking on down my street. And so one day I just I walked in there and uh and so yeah, this is my first time ever stepping into a church. I was relieved to find out it was a non-denominational church cuz you know I just came from a denomination. I don't know how I feel about going to another one. And so and yeah, the first thing they did right after the opening prayer was they pulled out their Bible and they spent like 45 minutes just deeply discussing scripture. And I'm just like and I remember the first time going through that thinking to myself, huh? So, okay. So, this is a church of Christendom which has false teachings and yet here they are just reading their Bible and having a commentary. I mean, this is just really just an oversized big giant Bible study group essentially was this was and you know then after that we sang a bunch of hymns and they get did the sermon and they took communion and all that. But yeah, that was just that was incredible for me. And um my my uh buddy whom who used to go to the hall, I told him about that in between after Veronica came and left the house and he I told him about the whole church thing and he was just like, "Yeah, dude, don't do that. Don't do not go running into another church. That's probably one of the stupidest things you could have done in that moment." And I told him I was just like, "Well, I was just kind of doing what the Holy Spirit compelled me to do." like I just wanted to go seek out, you know, what else is out there. He's just like, "Yeah, but dude, right now, no, no, you got a marriage to save." And I was like, "Okay." So, I didn't go back to that church for quite some time right away.
And but, you know, after talking with Tom encouraged me to go back to church again. And so, he ended up inviting me to his church. And so, I ended up going to his church. And, you know, it was more of a larger church. There's probably like 300 congregants there. And I ended up going back to the church at my down the street by my house. And uh the pastor there, really nice guy, he recognized me from coming in before. And he pulled me aside and just said, "Hey, uh how's things going with you? I remember you came in about several months ago. How are things been?" And and that's when I told him everything that was going on. and he was and I told him about my JW background and he was just kind of like, "Oh, oh, wow. Um, okay. Yeah, that's a lot. Uh, I just want you to know I have a degree in theology." And he pointed at his Bible and just said, "What I try to teach at this church, I always try to make sure comes out from out here." And if I ever from that pulpit say something that does not seem like it comes from this, you are welcome to come and correct me after a service. And when he said that to me, I mean, I just I mean, you would never have an elder in a kingdom hall say something like that. You just wouldn't.
And so and then I told him about how like you know how I remember somehow we got into the topic of baptism and I told him about how like in the JW organization you're prior to 1985 they used to baptize in the name of the father son holy spirit then they changed it and unfortunately because I was baptized pre-1985 I kind of realized oh crud I I started to think you know I don't think I really had a proper baptism and I was telling him about that and he was just like well if you want I can baptize you right now. And I'm like, seriously? And he's like, yeah, I I and he's like looks at his phone and says, in fact, I could probably do it arrange it for you and do it for you in the next 20 minutes here. And I was like, what?
No way. And so yeah, he had a few elders show up and they had like a big giant pool behind the pulpit, which was kind of interesting. And ended up putting on thing of clothes and uh he ended up baptizing me right there. It was kind of crazy. And uh yeah, so I got baptized.
This happened two months ago now and I don't know what's happened just like dude for the last two months just my outlook on life has been so much more optimistic and maybe it could just be I'm on the spiritual high but just like I I I'm not as glum anymore. It's like despite the crappiness of my current predicament with my ex, my estranged ex.
I just I'm happy. I also want to mention too that um I've maintained my sobriety and just a month ago I went through my phone recently and I removed every picture of a girl I had saved on my phone over the last year or so cuz you know I during that time I had saved pictures of girls. I mean, I had gone on only fans and which, you know, Veronica had caught me on a time or two and of course I was on it again and I remember I closed down my account and anything even semi-explicit. I cleaned my phone of it and I just realized, you know, I just something just really convinced me to just, hey, you know, I I can get past this and I can move on. And my life is it's just I I don't know how to describe this transformative this change that's come over me, but for the first time in nearly 30 some odd years, like I'm making changes for the better. And I know I would never have made these changes had I stayed in the JW organization long term. I just >> Yeah, it's you're not making the changes. It's Christ in you helping make those changes.
>> And that's the reason you have this different outlook is you do have the Holy Spirit now. You do have the presence of Christ himself in you and directing you and convicting you and saying, "Hey, there's a there's a better way. You have God now and you didn't before. You had the cheap knockoff who was waving his finger and and the outlook was only, hey, all those people in this world, they're going to be destroyed when God comes and kills them all because they weren't in the organization. And oh, by the way, you'll never be good enough. You ever so keep trying and trying and trying and and chasing the carrot and appeasing these elders and living under constant fear and oh, I can't imagine why you're depressed. I can't imagine why you're falling into sin. I can't imagine why things are falling apart. That's weird.
You know what you need to do? Go back to the Kingdom Hall and keep reading the magazines over and over and over again.
No, I read God's word who says I need to come to Christ and lay everything before his feet and let him pick me up from the mud and crap that I've put myself in.
And I run after him and let the healer heal me and free me from my sin. And he's going to transform my life. take something that was broken and make it beautiful. And I didn't need an organization or elders or a governing body or a freaking magazine to do it.
All I needed was his word and his Holy Spirit, which he gives for free. I didn't have to beg for it. I didn't have to go do some amount of works to do it.
No, I did not have to climb up a mountain to get to God. God came down off the mountain to get to me. And that's the message of the gospel. The Jehovah's Witness organization does not want people to know because it does not include them. I've said it a million times. When you stand before Christ and he says, "Why should I let you into my presence?"
>> You point to him.
>> That's the That's what Christians are meant to do. That's it. You point to him. Witnesses, they have to point to themselves, point to the organization, point to their works. That is not the good news message at all. Yeah. And thank thank you so much for sharing that, DH. And just and one final thing I just want to say too is um I don't hate my ex. If if I was still in the JW organization, I would absolutely hate her. But I can tell you right now, I don't hate her because I've been actually praying for her. And most importantly, I have been praying for my boys because they are going to essentially from how things are looking at the moment, they are probably going to be raised in two different religions.
And it's sad that I even have to say that because I believed I was raised in the one true Christian faith all my life. And come to find out that, you know, she even considers it to be a different religion with a different God.
She literally said that to me once and it's just crazy to think that cuz it's just like I literally sought out truth and Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. And honestly, no human organization can really just take that away from me at this point. And so yeah, I just and I just want to say to your audience and anybody out there is just pray for these two beautiful boys. Um their names are Bo and Ivan and they're three in one right now. They have they're in a very not a great position right now uh with their parents. Uh I have a lot of people in my church praying for them and I want to ask that anybody in their audience pray for them too because um their dad was recently he for many years out of very rocky soil and he learned that he had to change his soil to be more fertile so that when he got those seeds from God they could bloom into something beautiful.
And you know, it's some encouragement for you. It is going to be a tough road for them. It's going to be a tough road for you and a tough road uh for your ex-wife. Uh and what you have to do now because I know it's really confusing is well, you have to rely on God's word and what what he says. Uh rely on the church of the people that are going to help you, but uh you just be above reproach.
You may not be able to convince your children of anything yet. And yes, they're going to unfortunately hear a lot of lies from the other side. If you live like an ambassador to Christ, live a very Christc centered life and take them to a good church that has a great children's program. Um, >> my church has a Sunday school, >> that's that's really important and get us and have friends in that church and when they see, hey, these people treat me differently than those people. Uh, this church has a lot of love. This kingdom hall is not just boring, but there's not a lot of love here. any human can sense that. U and that's unfortunately why a lot of witnesses grab people is because they come from broken churches or churches that are just they stink and they go, "Well, I didn't find any love there. I found fake love at the Kingdom Hall." So get them into a real church. You seem to have found one. And I really pray that they continue to seek truth like you have and that God keeps guiding you in your sobriety and in turning away from all kinds of sexual sin. And yeah, it's going to be a journey. It's going to be a tough one, but but don't look at yourself in a negative way. Look at yourself as a redeemed child of God. Sit on that victory. Like stand on it.
really embrace it that God himself has covered you and that you're you're free and that's you have a message that you should want everyone to hear including your wife and so yeah anyone thinking oh I can't believe she did this and this like hey love her she's lost we have all been lost at some point in our lives and my prayer is that she can one day go wow that was crazy wow I can't believe I had that that much control over me and and now I've turned to Christ so I want that for everybody and especially for witnesses is why we do this, right? I mean, if I hated them, I wouldn't I would be playing video games right now.
You know, I want them to hear the message and want people involved in this to understand that there there is hope on the other side. It might take a while, but I think you're making the right choices. Um, it stinks what's happened. Obviously, you've made some some wrong choices, but uh you're definitely turning back around. So glad you're doing that and uh becoming a becoming a godly man.
>> Yeah.
>> So thanks for sharing. Appreciate it.
>> I just want to share just one final scripture. Matthew 19:29.
Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or fathers or mothers or children or farms for my name's sake will receive many times as much and will inherit eternal life. I'm only sharing that because I've had a lot of people accuse me recently of sacrificing my family. And I just say, "No, I didn't. I I did what I did to become a better person. I left the organization to become a better person, a more of a man of God, and I've paid a a dear penalty."
And so, don't ever think that. So, anyway, that's my closing.
>> Great verse.
>> Yeah.
>> Great verse. You didn't go to another where, you went to a who.
>> Yeah.
>> And that's something that they just unfortunately don't get. Well, Tristan, thanks so much. Continue to pray for you and your entire family, your kids, and your ex-wife, and looking forward to what God has in store for you, for the rest of your life. He's he's just beginning. So, he's going to continue to sanctify you and move you closer to the image that conform you to the image of his son. So, looking forward to seeing that. Thanks again, All right. Thank you.
>> Appreciate it.
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