I was born and raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in the UK. Like many others raised in the faith, I never questioned it. I was baptized at 17, began pioneering at 18, and devoted the next ten years of my life to it. At 19, I met my husband, and by 20, we were married. From the outside, we were the model Witness couple—fully devoted, active in ministry, and respected within the congregation.
But cracks started to form.
When I turned 28, I started a new job, and for the first time in years, I had regular contact with “worldly” people. They were kind, thoughtful, and nonjudgmental—nothing like the warnings we’d always been given at meetings. I enjoyed their company, and I began to question why we were told to fear them.
Meanwhile, my husband, who was serving as an elder, saw the hypocrisy and injustice within the leadership. Confidential information about congregation members—deeply personal struggles and sins was shared among elders as casual gossip. He had also been forced to shun his own mother for 20 years, from the time he was just 16. The emotional trauma of that nearly broke him.
Together, we started doubting.
We moved to a new congregation, and my husband stepped down as an elder. Then the pandemic hit, and everything changed. With time away from the meetings and ministry, we had space to think research, and reflect. It didn’t take long before we realized we could no longer agree with what we were being taught. The deeper we looked, the more we saw the cracks. The control. The fear. The manipulation.
Leaving wasn’t easy. The process was filled with anger, resentment, depression, and even addiction struggles. But despite everything, we were lucky—we woke up together. I can’t imagine how alone I would have felt if my husband had stayed in while I left.
Even though we were never disfellowshipped, we have still been shunned. Our old friends refuse to speak to us. Some of our family members still see us, but only in secret, terrified of the consequences if we are formally disfellowshipped. Because of this, we live cautiously, keeping a low profile on social media, avoiding interactions that might get us reported. We’ve even moved and kept our address hidden from the congregation, hoping they will simply forget about us.
It has been two years since we fully walked away. The emotional scars will last a lifetime. But for the first time, we are free.