In 1984, at the age of 36, I found myself at a crossroads. After years of witnessing the notorious corruption and cruelty of the untouchable leaders within the Watchtower Society, I began to see through the deceptive ideology that had trained Jehovah’s Witnesses like myself to be nothing more than distributors of the Watchtower Society’s publications—Bibles, books, periodicals, and brochures. These publications, which we purchased from the Kingdom Hall (what they called their meeting places), were then distributed door-to-door, creating a steady stream of income for the organization from all corners of the world. Faced with this realization, I decided to quietly distance myself from the organization, without formally announcing my departure, in hopes of preserving my family ties and avoiding the inevitable rejection and possible exclusion.
My wife, however, continued her active involvement. I watched as she prepared to attend the five weekly meetings (now, I would call them “conditioning” meetings), as was the custom at the time. My internal clock, programmed since the age of 18, now required a conscious effort to resist the urge to join her and instead remain at home. This is how I began to break free from this high-control group. As I renewed my critical thinking, I attempted to introduce rationality into conversations with my wife and her son’s family from a previous marriage. Their reaction was swift. My wife declared, “If you want to reclaim your freedom, you can!” I was taken aback, as I had never considered separation, let alone divorce, especially since there had been no adultery—according to biblical criteria, the only valid reason for divorce.
But my wife repeated this ultimatum with increasing frequency, and in 1998, we drove together to meet with a notary and a lawyer. We sat side by side, though several chairs could have separated us. Within a month, we divorced by mutual consent. This was how I was cast aside.
What I Lost: I lost a family life, grandchildren whom I had bottle-fed, diapered, shared my knowledge and wisdom with, showered with affection, and taken on countless journeys around the world. I lost two teenagers, aged 17 and 15, who, conditioned by the Watchtower and their parents, severed all contact with me. This loss was painful, as I had no particular child of my own with their grandmother. My social life deteriorated further when the leaders of the Jehovah’s Witnesses falsely announced in every Kingdom Hall on the island of La Réunion that I had voluntarily left, thereby forbidding anyone from speaking to me or even offering a simple greeting. This is the Watchtower’s way of ensuring that those who remain loyal to the ideology are pressured into divorce.
What I Gained: A ministerial assignment took me to the island of Mayotte, where I trained schoolteachers in educational psychology under the direction of a branch of the Faculty of Human Sciences of La Réunion, established in Mayotte. This distance from La Réunion—a French overseas department where I had arrived in 1969 from Grenoble, France, to expand the Watchtower’s activities—allowed me to rebuild my life. I found solace in my work, made new friends among my colleagues and the Mahorais (inhabitants of Mayotte), and immersed myself in their customs and traditions.
In Madagascar, I also met the woman who became my wife in the year 2000. In 2005, we welcomed a son, three years before my retirement in 2008 at the age of 60. Being available, I was able to devote myself to his upbringing. When he was two and a half, he saw me playing the piano and asked me to teach him. I introduced him to music theory and the instrument, and we played four-hand pieces together with great joy. At the age of seven, we enrolled him in the Conservatory of Music in La Réunion, where we had returned in 2001. Today, he is a proud member of the Polyphonia Orchestra, fulfilling a dream I never thought possible after the turmoil I had endured.