STORIES

Marriage as a Solution

In the world of Jehovah’s Witnesses, marriage isn’t a luxury—it’s a mission. It’s the vehicle for spiritual purpose, for containment, for keeping young people like me firmly inside the system. I was young, single, and devout. I was exactly what the congregation was looking for. And within one year, five young men had expressed interest in dating me.

That year was a whirlwind, and I was flattered. Each man came with his own complications. There was the one that would result in a mixed-race relationship—the religion supported it, but society did not. It might not have affected my choice had I known him better. There was another who arrived with spreadsheets, literal numbers crunched to show how he could support me financially. Its embarrassing to admit but my choice with him was based on his negative image in high school as a “nerd”. I knew him well enough, but that stupid stigma from high school. And then there was the lumberjack living in a small trailer in the woods, eight hours north. He would travel down whenever he had a break from work. He was my idea of perfection. When he decided to pursue dating me, his family held a big dinner and invited me—a tradition I only learned about years later. I attended that dinner completely unaware of what it meant.

But at that dinner, I met W—almost by accident. W was the brother-in-law of the lumberjack’s brother. He was new to the congregation, recently reinstated after being removed and exiled for a past transgression. He was invited as an afterthought. There were two other men worth mentioning, but one had too much to learn about, and the fifth was just passing through. He ended up being a drug addict, so good I avoided his advances.

I ended up marrying W. The afterthought.

Before we moved forward, W sat me down and told me everything. He was in the middle of a nasty custody battle with his ex-wife. His exile from the congregation had stemmed from things she’d reported to the elders. Among those claims were accusations of sexual abuse against their then five-year-old daughter. Those accusations were later thrown out of court. The judge asked the little girl directly if her mother had told her to say these things. She said yes. The judge recognized that the mother was using her child as a weapon against her father. I still believe that nothing of the sort ever happened.

I chose him anyway. For the sake of the children, who were five and six years old. I believed that his custody fight would look better if he had a wife. It might balance him out in the eyes of the courts. I was going to be the good woman, the supportive partner, the answer to a problem that wasn’t really mine to solve.

The elders sat me down. They made it clear: within this religion, you only date with the intention of marriage. No casual exploring. No getting to know someone. The clock starts ticking the moment you both admit to interest. Everything else is just logistics.

About the wedding date — December 11, 1997. Others choose their wedding dates romantically. Not us. The date was chosen based on the timing of my menstrual cycle and getting me on his taxes before the end of the year. Retrospectively, this was the first sign of a pattern of zero romance.

I was uncomfortable with W’s constant desire to kiss and make out. But you have to understand where I was at that stage of my life—policed for who I was, pushed toward who they wanted me to be. Every part of me was suspect. Every friendship was dangerous. Every feeling was something to be prayed away.

So I saw the marriage as a way to shut them up. I thought if I had a husband, if I played the role of devoted wife perfectly, they would stop watching. They would stop wondering. They would stop asking. But like a leaky dam, I plugged one hole for another to pop open.

When we decided to start dating, he was living with his uncle — red flag number two. He secured an apartment quickly. At the time, he was working nights at a local foundry. When he left for work, I would use that time to move in my clothing and belongings, being very careful never to be alone with him. But the dam’s new leaks were already showing. The apartment building was tucked up a hill, away from normal traffic. And yet, the elders were somehow informed that I was going to his apartment every night. Nobody bothered to ask me about it.

I would have simply told them the truth — that he wasn’t there, his car wasn’t there, that I was alone. But apparently, I was never alone.