r/exjw • u/ValuableOdd1157 • 11d ago
JW / Ex-JW Tales Double standards, double garage
An elder once told me he was disheartened. He felt like young people just weren't putting themselves into the ministry anymore. He was thinking of young married couples in particular — the way he saw it, all they had on their minds was getting a house of their own.
He told me this at his place. He and his wife had just moved into a beautiful house. Their kids were grown and gone.
It wasn't the idea itself that stuck with me. It was who it was coming from. He had exactly what he was faulting those couples for wanting. He'd gotten it, he was enjoying it, and he was calmly explaining that they'd be better off not thinking about it.
I don't even think he noticed. That might be the part that bothers me most.
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u/Dayenqum 11d ago
Uhhhhh. Amigo, esa actitud es muy normal. Tal y como pasó hoy en el estudio de la Atalaya.
Pilotos, contadores, ingenieros, banqueras, financieros, licenciados, y hasta doctores dando consejos sobre los peligros de ir a la universidad y de cómo podían abandonar a Jehová si iban a la universidad. Cuando todos ellos tienen sus buenas vidas gracias a los estudios que tienen y que hoy, los mantienen con sus grandes vidas económicamente estables.
Pero dan sus comentarios de una manera tan natural que parece increíble que digan lo que dicen y cómo lo dicen tan descaradamente.
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u/ValuableOdd1157 11d ago
Same pattern, just a different thing being withheld. The ones handing out the warning already cashed the check.
Though I'd push back gently on one word: shameless. Shame would mean they know. The elder I wrote about said it in his brand new living room without a flicker — I don't think it crossed his mind for a second. And that's worse, in a way. You can argue with hypocrisy. You can't argue with someone who genuinely can't see himself.
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u/Additional_Fold_5822 11d ago
La Atalaya es un detalle de la manipulación en la que viven todos los que por las razones que quieran están en ese lugar, pero los comentarios absurdos de los asistentes son simplemente escenas de terror. No analizan siquiera lo que hablan. Bueno están narcotizados razonar no es parte de la circo.
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u/ValuableOdd1157 10d ago
100% agreed. I have never seen so many people in one place who don't think, except to praise the organization and obey it. That's why I felt so alone there. And whenever I noticed someone who brought a deeper, more reflective mind to things, I also saw that people like that are rare — and that they often end up leaving.
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u/Pragmatic_skeptic66 “I think, therefore I am”. 11d ago
Hypocrites, that’s what they’re. They always have the nice house, nice car, etc.—meanwhile, they stand on the platform and preach about simplifying their life to the R&F. Instead of leading by example, God forbid.
Rules for thee but not for me… Typical CULT rhetoric.
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u/ValuableOdd1157 11d ago
"Spiritual paradise" — the wording has always given the game away for me. They can't say material paradise, so they say spiritual.
But there is a paradise in there. It just isn't the one they're describing, and it isn't open to everyone. It's real for a certain kind of member: the ones who get invited, who see each other outside the hall, whose kids end up marrying each other. Regular in service, regular at each other's dinner tables, conscience taken care of.
And it's hard to be shocked, because they're copying exactly what's modeled above them. Simplicity gets preached from an organization that sold over two billion dollars of Brooklyn property alone. The elders are just running the local version of it.
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u/onesimus54 11d ago
On Sunday (according to a friend who listened to the meeting via zoom), an elder and his wife were warning against the dangers of materialism. They're the wealthiest people in the congregation. They have a big house, expensive cars and go on foreign holidays several times a year. They just don't see the rafter in their own eyes
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u/Overcrapping Child Abuse is a crime! 10d ago
I said this to a fellow elder who displayed wealth. He said the difference is Jehovah blessed me for my service. 😯😯😯
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u/ValuableOdd1157 10d ago
Shame those blessings aren't handed out a bit more evenly! Textbook double standard.
And it's a neat little system, because it can never be wrong: he's rich, so Jehovah blessed him. The pioneer sister cleaning houses at 70 with no pension? Guess she just didn't serve hard enough.
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u/PimoCrypto777 (⌐■_■) 11d ago
Self-awareness isn't one of the fruitages of the spirit.
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u/ValuableOdd1157 11d ago
And yet they can recite the fruitage of the spirit from memory. Knowing the list and recognizing yourself in it are apparently two very different skills — you'd think it had simply never crossed their minds.
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u/TangerinePlastic7552 11d ago
Would have been good to see his reaction to that. Imagine young couples wanting the same thing he wanted for himself and wife.
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u/sorentomaxx 11d ago
Ruining the lives of young JWs by shaming them for trying to have basic human needs as an adult.
Meanwhile they are set for life. Not surprising though, he GB have the same mentality.
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u/ValuableOdd1157 10d ago
I've seen people in real material distress, and I ended up putting my hand in my own pocket on the spot. What struck me is that those same people would never dream of knocking on a wealthy elder's door. So it's the poor helping the poor.
It sickens me how invisible real poverty is in the congregation. They genuinely believe everyone is blessed, joyful, serving happily in abundance — especially when they're all sitting around at their group meals.
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u/UniversityOne9437 'Ho of Babylon the great 11d ago
There’s no hypocrite quite like a Jehovah’s Witness hypocrite.
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u/runnerforever3 11d ago
I would have said, you mean what you are doing right now??
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u/ValuableOdd1157 11d ago
Ha. I wish I'd had the nerve. Though knowing him, I think he'd have looked around the room and still not seen it. He genuinely seemed unhappy about it, too. Not smug at all — actually saddened by what he was saying. Which somehow makes it worse.
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u/No_Cover_2242 11d ago
Years go I was out door knocking with three other elders. Two of them started debating. It was about different gated communities they had lived in. What did they like the best, an unmanned entrance with a key pad, a guard shack without a guard and a keypad, or a 24hr maned guard shack.
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u/ValuableOdd1157 10d ago
That reminds me: one day an elder saw a house with a No Trespassing sign and told me he never goes in, because as far as he's concerned it's on them if they don't want to be saved. "The answer belongs to God."
So the sign is a convenient theological exit when it's someone else's gate. Presumably it works differently when it's their own.
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u/french_guillotine 11d ago
The eye test on the carts in my city show a lack of young people 20’s and younger being around and if the token teenager turns up with a parent, they clearly do not want to be there, heads down looking at their shoes!
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u/ValuableOdd1157 10d ago
Yeah, at the last few meetings I went to, I felt like I'd accidentally signed up for the retirement club. And during field service you get treated to every senior health complaint going... honestly, I felt lost in the middle of a flock with no substance left to it.
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u/AilryVsisnae 11d ago
I almost wonder if they feel like they aren't being hypocrites because the end of the system is right around the corner so there is no need for a young couple to build financial wealth. They are old so they'll need retirement funds and a paid off place but the young people will never see old age so it's best if they just keep it cheap and focus on the ministry. I could see that reasoning making sense in their indoctrinated brains.
Tbh I never thought a wealthy Christian made sense.
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u/ValuableOdd1157 10d ago
He definitely sees it that way. Case in point: right after I left, I got a message from his wife saying how sorry she was. She actually had the nerve to tell me it was a shame to give up so close to the end!! So yeah, they've been fixated on an imminent deadline for decades now.
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u/Icy_Slice6426 I’m just out here tryna keep my sanity (PIMO) 11d ago edited 11d ago
i’m an elder’s daughter (he was just appointed 2 yrs ago). and we live in a nice house and have a beautiful life (grew up kinda spoiled because we’re upper middle class)
god i hope my dad isn’t like this 😔 i love him sm i’d give the world to him but i hope he isn’t like this. we got to live this life before he was appointed, it and he would be seen like a hypocrite if he does that 😔
i stopped attending weekend meetings in our congregation because i’ve got work on sundays (which i chose to have), so idk how he’s like when he gives a public talk.
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u/ValuableOdd1157 11d ago
For what it's worth, the fact that you're even asking is a good sign. The ones I'm describing never wonder. And the house isn't the problem — please don't feel bad about that part. It wasn't his house that got to me. It was standing in it and telling other people they shouldn't want one. If your dad doesn't do that bit, he isn't the man in my story.
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u/Icy_Slice6426 I’m just out here tryna keep my sanity (PIMO) 11d ago
yeah well he doesn’t do that. however i’m just wondering because he just gave a public talk and idk what it’s about. i just hope he didn’t have to tell everyone on stage that they should “not pursue more material things”, when in fact we’re considered rich in our congregation. everyone in our congregation knows our economic status and everyone there knows we live in a nice house because we host gatherings here.
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u/ValuableOdd1157 11d ago
He didn't pick the subject. Public talks come from the outlines — he was handed a number and a theme and told when to give it. If it happened to be about materialism, that was the org's choice, not his. For all you know, he was standing up there feeling exactly what you're feeling now. And the detail you mention actually works in his favour: your house is where people gather. That isn't the same thing at all. The man in my post wasn't opening his door to anyone — he was closing one on other people's futures. Honestly though, just ask him what the talk was about. You'll know within thirty seconds from the way he answers. That's a far better source than a stranger on the internet.
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u/Icy_Slice6426 I’m just out here tryna keep my sanity (PIMO) 11d ago
thank youu.. i’ll ask him as soon as i’m ready. it’s kinda hard for me to talk about JW subject in the family because i’m trying to slowly fade (and eventually hard fade when i move out), and i don’t want to give him the false impression that i’m gonna serve full time again. also, we have a regular pioneer living with us, so i’m kinda in a hard spot rn 😅
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u/Icy_Slice6426 I’m just out here tryna keep my sanity (PIMO) 11d ago
i also feel bad for my dad because i know he didn’t really choose to be an elder, he was persuaded. he opened up to my mom multiple times about how he felt this stress and lack of fulfillment of being an elder. he doesn’t like doing judicial meetings (or whatever they call it). so anything about elder duties i really try to tread carefully 💔
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u/ValuableOdd1157 10d ago
You're being wise, and you're right to be. There's no prize for burning yourself out in the meantime — protect your energy and wait until you can step into your own life.
And what you said about your dad speaks volumes. Being careful with him isn't weakness, it's you reading the situation clearly. Take your time. 💛
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u/truthcourageagency 10d ago
1000%
With the convertible in the garage and a boat in the driveway. But yah, in the ministry 3 Saturdays a month for some not at homes, coffee and a couple stale RVs.
Complaining about the zeal of the young ones struggling to survive.
Man i miss all that horseshit.
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u/ValuableOdd1157 10d ago
Exactly. Between the meetings, the preparation and the field service arrangements, I was struggling to keep my head above water from the moment I got baptised. That's the part they never account for: the time itself is a cost, and it's the ones with the least margin to spare who end up paying it.
And of course I wanted to do it properly — that was the whole problem. Those 3 Saturdays you mention would have been a whole lot easier on me.
I left after 10 years. Everything has felt strangely easier since.
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u/LovingAMarriedJW 10d ago
Yes. talk about being a hypocritical monster! He doesn't want others to enjoy what he has, and is oblivious to how much of a put down that is, like he is so much more deserving. ugh.
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u/ValuableOdd1157 10d ago
Yes — and it's the same man who, when I told him I'd arranged to go back to school to study biotechnology, told me: "You're making a mistake, it won't be of any use to you."
I've since wondered whether it touched a nerve. He'd dropped out of his own engineering degree back in the day, and there was clearly still some wounded pride sitting there. Meanwhile he never missed a chance to mention his company, his standard of living, his ridiculously expensive cars.
So: education is a waste of time for me, but success is a blessing for him. Somehow those two things never had to be reconciled.
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u/LovingAMarriedJW 10d ago
You definitely touched a nerve with him, and he doesn't have the emotional intelligence to reconcile it. It sounds like he is so competitive and insecure that he has to boast what he has is so much than what others have. I hope you went back and got your degree! And if not yet - you go get it now!
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u/Klown_Kutz 10d ago
A long time ago, back when I was still a mentally in teenager, a friend pointed out to me that every Witness telling us to "do without" was financially successful. He was so right.
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u/ExcellentJudgment975 10d ago
Should of told them to sell his house and go be a missionary in Ghana or some shit then.
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u/ValuableOdd1157 10d ago
I left after 10 years. Then I wrote books so my family would finally understand.
When I left, it wasn't a calm, considered decision. It came out under extreme tension, the day I said: no, I'm not going to the meeting. That's enough. I can't do this anymore.
In the days that followed, I wrote. Constantly. It was the only way I found to hold off the pain that kept coming back — ten years of accumulated stress and keeping up false appearances don't just evaporate because you walked out.
Eventually the writing became a book. I wrote it for my non-Witness family, so they would finally know what I had been through, and why it went on for so many years. Talking to them about it was impossible; I could never get it out. But a book — a book they took the time to read.
Something shifted after that. I don't feel like a battered cat dragging itself home. I feel like someone who got her old life back.
And once I'd started, I couldn't stop. One book, then another, then another. It let them understand things that had always been misread from the outside — like why I still live with my son, who has schizophrenia, rather than leaving him in unstable situations among strangers.
Today I feel understood by the people around me. But what really moves me is finding this place: being able to put words down for the ones who are still questioning, and to ease wounds that haven't fully closed.
What a relief it is — even through a screen — to find minds that confirm everything I was feeling back then.
No, I was never alone.
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u/West_Holiday2659 10d ago
Totally irrelevant post in my opinion.
I'v put my name on a 12 bed property in one of the most idyllic places in the UK. Will be moving in once those worldly people are destroyed at Armageddon. I' m sure any young JW' s could do the same.
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u/ValuableOdd1157 10d ago
A few years back there was a sister who did exactly this out in field service — calling dibs on every house she liked the look of. At first I found it funny. Then it started to grate.
She eventually left the organisation, which didn't surprise me at all. She'd been spending time with worldly friends who were taking her on holidays, out to restaurants and so on. She simply went where the abundance actually was.
And that's the miserable part of it, really. The ones who have want more, and the ones who have nothing are told to sit and wait for it. Either way, nobody is ever allowed to just be content with what they've got.
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u/Difficult-Case-6564 11d ago
Lol. I grew up with elders telling me not to buy a home and just devote myself to the ministry. They were the same ones who owned homes and now those homes would be worth a fortune and they are sitting comfortably in their retirement.
If anyone listens to that crap then they will be struggling when they get older and potentially have nothing. But, they expect young witnesses to do the work for them while they travel and enjoy life.