At nineteen, I fell in love and made the choice many young people make—I became intimate with my boyfriend before marriage. But as a Jehovah’s Witness, this simple act of human intimacy triggered a cascade of consequences that would shadow my marriage for 26 years.
The elders of my congregation subjected us to humiliating interrogations about our intimate moments. My then-boyfriend, being a baptized member, received the harshest punishment: disfellowshipping—complete social excommunication. I was merely reproved as an unbaptized publisher. This disparity would shape our lives in ways I couldn’t imagine.
Our dream wedding evaporated. No friends could attend. My mother insisted we marry quickly to legitimize our relationship, but what should have been a joyous beginning became marked by isolation and pain.
My new husband fell into a deep depression. The community that had been his family—including close friends from his hometown in Mexico who had provided him with connection to his culture—now treated him as if he were dead. He couldn’t comprehend how people who claimed to represent a loving God could discard him so completely.
The weight of guilt crushed me. I blamed myself for his banishment, for destroying his world. When I suffered a miscarriage, I interpreted it as divine punishment. My husband, already isolated by shunning, couldn’t even properly comfort me in our grief—the congregation’s support was denied to him.
As our two daughters grew up, they couldn’t understand why their father was treated as invisible, why their friends couldn’t visit our home, and why he never attended congregation meetings. I became resentful, desperately wanting him to return to the faith, to make our family “normal.” At one point I even threatened divorce, and shamefully, for a time I began to participate in his shunning within our own home.
In March 2023, I finally began researching my religion more deeply. What I discovered shattered my worldview but freed my conscience. As I left the organization, I experienced firsthand the devastating power of mandated shunning. My uncle who had been like a father, my favorite aunt, my closest friends all vanished from my life. Even a dear friend who was herself being shunned cut contact with me, believing she deserved her punishment and that I was now an evil apostate.
Today, I tell my daughters there is nothing they could ever do to make me stop loving them or remove them from my life. The practice of mandated shunning by the Governing Body of Jehovah’s Witnesses reveals a profound truth: no truly loving God would demand the severance of family bonds as proof of loyalty.
My story is not unique. Across the world, countless families suffer under religious policies that weaponize love and twist it into a tool of control. The time has come to speak out against mandated shunning and reclaim our basic human right to family and community.