Iv'e been married 14 years with my wife. When we married we were both Jehovah's witnesses. I have over last few years decided that I dont agree with some of they're policies and demands as regard to required worship. My wife doesnt accept this and thus we are at a cross road. I don't mind if she wants to pursue this way of life with our kids butdo not want to be active as on of JWs anymore. This is a big deal as you might imagine escpecially if you know what is expected and taught in the church. Being that she feels I made this commitment when we married to fullfill this course of life with her she demands I maintain association and passion to "serve our god " togethr as JWs. As you can expect this is #1 out of top 5 emotional needs she has on her list for me meeting to cause her happieness. I am meeting the other 4 pretty well but not fullfilling # 1 is not good. Can you give me any suggestions to better deal with this major issue. I love my wife dearly and want to be with my family. It's just that not being able to fullfill her on this is causing her to feel thaT we may not have a future together. This is so sad being that the religion pretty much teachs and instills that if one partner changes there mind about being a JW its highly difficult to carry on a happy marriege. Please help me if you can. Thanks!!

Hi Jason, welcome to Marriage Builders. I wanted to first point out she does not have an emotional need for you to be a JW. That is not an emotional need, it is a selfish demand. When your wife tells you that she wants you to suffer so she can have what she wants, she doesn't understand that this expectation means she doesn't care about you.

It is important that you do not make sacrifices because that will erode YOUR lovebank and set you up for years of resentment. Even if you did agree to do this, you won't be doing it for long, because people tend to avoid doing things they dislike.

A better approach is to find a solution that will work for you BOTH. She should not gain at your expense, in other words.

I would check out this article to see if it gives you some ideas. ALSO, you should email Dr Harley on his radio show and ask him this question. He will answer on his radio show and you can play it back for your wife.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi5040a_qa.html

**edit**

A reminder to posters to help the OP with Marriage Builders concepts. If you can do that, then feel free to post. Otherwise kindly refrain from posting.

deleted by request of Fireproof.

I'm not sure if this will be helpful or not. But my wife and I are both Christians. For the first few years of our marriage, we went to different churchs. We would go and do a Sunday school class together and then I would go to a different church because I preferred my Methodist church and she preferred her Pentecostal church.

That being said, there's no way it would've flown for one of us to demand that we believe religiously different than we believed.

I would definitely avoid sacrifice in the marriage. My suggestion is to see how you can negotiate a solution with her.

Her selfish demand of you being a JW may come down to a control issue. She may feel your soul is at stake and because she loves you she wants to make sure your soul is in the right place. Only you can control your soul. Many folks believe to love someone you have to force them to do what they feel is best.

I encourage you to find a solution that works for both of you.

Can you brainstorm and bring us some of your ideas on what you would like to negotiate?

**EDIT**

I think your right about that. I know my wife and she is very loving and giving in heart. Basically when yu have taught all your life that this 'God's Organization" is key to staying protected and happy it creates such a strong conviction. It also is driven by fear(subconcious) that if you do leave your whole life will fall apart ad eventually you will loose your life at God's War. Her intentions are what one would expect based on what she has been around. She means well but unfortunitly when ones whole family and so called friends are in the faith and very active(her family and part of mine)it makes the whole thing much more serious. Being that JWs have seperated themselves so much from main stream religions with regard to holidays and traditions, etc one can see how hard this would be if one mate choose to not want to "live the life" and be in active. having kids just compounds this too. Thanks for your all the help fellow members!!

My apologies. But that's what I did. This is how my wife incorporated POJA sonthat we were both enthusiastic about the situation.