AwayNGone

Thanks for the welcome Jeff! I'm doing very well thank you. But there is a small part of me that would love to have 15 minutes to point out a few things to LCM: Me, one of the ones you wanted the revelation to murder is remarried to a non-believer who is the kindest, sweetest most loving person on the planet. Someone who is honest and who strives every day to be a better person. Financially my life is sweet. I am finishing my degree and the best part, I am finally, truly, happy. The man you thought was so wonderful... yeah, he's living somewhere out in the back of beyond, can't work, and he's waiting on a kidney transplant. And you are, from what I hear, wearing a uniform and looking a bit pathetic. In my world we call that karma.

Did TWI screw up my marriage? They tried. And I wish they had done a better job of it. Warning: I've been "marked and avoided" so take that into account :-) I married my WOW brother (there's a whole story there that I won't get into here) and leadership was not happy. They were grooming him to move onward and upward rapidly and I was seen as a bad influence and a spiritual anchor. The kind that holds you under water and drowns you. I was always made to feel as though I was tolerated for his sake but that truly, on my own, I was trouble. I had too many questions and I committed the grave sin of not only disagreeing with leadership but questioning their practices and loudly announcing those I thought were nonsense. I remember sitting on the couch on more than a few occasions and being confronted by leadership for my ungodly behavior or attitude. At the time I still believed that we were SUPPOSED to question and examine and think for ourselves. When confronted it was not unusual for me to point out where the leadership had engaged in exactly the same behavior at some point and then let them know that they needed to chapter and verse it for me and show me how it was okay for them and not for me. They never would. I was supposed to listen and behave because they knew better. They ALWAYS knew better and inconsistencies were a result of MY lack of understanding. I can remember sitting out in the Way Woods and thinking I should just set up a pup tent and live among the trees because I dreaded setting foot in any building at HQ by then. The other side of that coin was that my husband, to whom I was so unequally yoked, was a pathological liar and leadership knew it. But it was tolerated and accepted. He was a man of God, a born leader, full of potential. After 10 years I finally left. I couldn't take the lies, the financial ruin he dragged us through again and again while leadership patted him on the back and bailed him out. The last straw was the cheating. Bad enough on it's own but made infinitely worse when his explanation for his behavior was the presence of a brain tumor. An explanation that was, shocker, another lie.

Hi! I was WOW in Rockford, Illinois in 86-87 with Carol Sue Brown, Charles Ray Juarez and Lloyd Mandula. Is there anyone around that was in Rockford then and remembers them? I happen to know where Charlie is (we were married for 20 years) but lost track of Lloyd and Carol Sue.

I have not seen Carol Sue in years but I was WOW in Rockford, Illinois in 86-87 and Carol Sue was our family coordinator. She was corps and I never spoke to her again after I left Illinois but I cannot imagine that HQ was very easy on her as her entire WOW family, including me, left before the year was out. I'd heard she married but can't confirm it.