After Waking Up (Part 1): Love, Indoctrination, and Intimacy Unraveled

I. Introduction

Leaving a high-control religion doesn’t just shake your beliefs — it shakes your foundation. And for those of us who were married inside that framework, it eventually forces us to face a painful and deeply personal question: Are we together because of love — or because of the system that told us to be?

For me, I never truly questioned our marriage. I always believed in our love. But I know Fadela did, at times. And I don’t see that as a threat or a sign that she loved me any less. I see it as something honest, maybe even necessary. Because when everything else falls apart — when the beliefs, the rules, the certainty evaporate — what’s left between two people matters more than ever.

Over the past couple of years, I've come across so many stories of couples who woke up from the Jehovah's Witness religion — some together, some at different times, and some where only one partner ever did. And in so many of these stories, the marriage didn’t survive. Sometimes it’s because one remained in the religion, and the other became an outsider. But even in cases where both partners left, the cracks that had been papered over for years suddenly widened. It’s a tragic irony: the same organization that claims to protect marriage as a sacred institution often ends up being the very thing that undermines it. It teaches dependency, suppresses individuality, discourages emotional honesty, and creates a framework where love is conditional and often performative. When that scaffolding falls away, many couples are left standing in rubble, not knowing how to rebuild.

We met inside that system, in our early twenties. We were each other’s first sexual partner, and in many ways, our story didn’t follow the rules. It was a whirlwind, instinctive, natural — definitely not the typical “Jehovah’s Witness dating procedure.” We didn’t go ask the elders or our parents for permission. We didn’t follow the prescribed steps. We saw each other. We clicked. We held hands before we ever had the talk. We shared touches before asking if we were “allowed.” And when our friends raised eyebrows, we shrugged and said, “I guess we’re dating.”

But that freedom didn’t sit well within the framework we were part of. Our friends — good people, but deeply shaped by the organization’s thinking — were quick to remind us of the expectations: if you're dating, it must be “in view of marriage,” with clear boundaries, chaperones, spiritual alignment, and a shared commitment to lifelong service. Everything needed to be defined, approved, controlled. And while part of us tried to conform to those expectations, another part of us just wanted to be together, on our own terms. That tension caused friction, but it also taught us how strong our connection was — and how much we valued being free with each other.

II. Love or Indoctrination?

This is the hardest question of all: Are we together because we truly love each other — or because the religion told us we should be?

I know how I feel about my wife. That feeling sits deep inside me — beyond words, beyond logic. I can try to express it through what I say, through how I act, through the decisions I make — but in the end, no one else can fully see it. Not even her. It’s mine. And yes, there was a time when I thought that Jehovah could read my heart and confirm those feelings, but I don’t believe that anymore. Now, it’s just me and the quiet voice inside, trying to understand what’s real.

And what’s real is this: I love her. I’ve always loved her. I want to be with her for life. But trying to explain that love — especially after all the layers of religious programming we’ve had to peel back — is no simple task. The religion didn’t invent our love, but it did shape how we talked about it, how we expressed it, how we understood it. And so even love — pure and beautiful — gets tangled up in doubt. Not because it isn’t real, but because the framework we lived in made us question even our most genuine emotions.

Growing up, we were given a script. In our case, it was the “Family book,” with its detailed instructions on what love should look like, what marriage should be, what roles a husband and wife must play. The hierarchy was clear: Jehovah at the top, then Christ, then the husband, then the wife. And within that structure, we were told how to feel, how to act, even how to desire.

I never felt at ease in the role they assigned me. I was supposed to be the spiritual head, the one who initiated Bible study, led prayers, organized family worship. And I tried — again and again — but always with the lingering feeling that I was failing. Failing to guide. Failing to lead. Failing to live up to expectations I maybe never truly believed in. It wasn’t a lack of love. It was the crushing pressure of an imposed identity I didn’t fit into.

That same rigidity carried into sex. Officially, we were told it was a gift from Jehovah — a sacred bond. But that “gift” came with conditions. You could only express intimacy in certain ways. No oral sex (supposedly "unnatural"). No exploration. No room to discover what feels right for you as a couple. It was intimacy by instruction manual. Even the supposed kindness — “be aware of your partner’s feelings,” “mutually agree if you take a break from sex” — was buried under the assumption that the man leads and the woman follows. That intimacy is a duty, not a dialogue.

Instead of learning how to communicate openly with each other — how to listen, how to express, how to navigate desire and vulnerability — we were given verses. Rules. Scripts. Everything was filtered through the question: What does Jehovah want from us? Instead of: What do we want from each other?

And when you’re told again and again what a “good couple” should look like, you end up focusing on appearances. Projecting the image. Hiding the mess. Trying to be a model couple for others while silently crumbling on the inside. You never get to fully face the parts that don’t fit the mold. You just learn to suppress them. And that, to me, is one of the greatest failures of the system.

Yes, we have our differences — our personalities sometimes clash. And yes, there are frictions that are just part of being human. But how many of those tensions were really between us — and how many were planted by the system we were trapped in? How much of the pain we carried was not from incompatibility, but from trying to force our love into a mold that was never meant for us?

When people say opposites attract, I feel that deeply. There are parts of Fadela that are so different from me — and so precious to me. But within the religion, those differences were sometimes framed as flaws. Her openness, her boldness, her warmth — things I adore — were often misunderstood or even condemned. And I’ll admit: I sometimes let that view creep into my thinking. I let the system distort how I saw her. But today, I want to love her for who she truly is. And I want her to do the same for me. Not because someone told us to. Not because we’re trying to fit a mold. But because we choose each other freely, every single day.

III. Repressed Sexuality and Emotional Inhibition

One of the most damaging effects of growing up in a high-control religion — and in Fadela’s case, a conservative cultural background as well — is the suppression of sexual exploration and bodily autonomy. You’re not just told what is “right” or “wrong” — you’re taught to fear your own desires. To second-guess your instincts. To attach guilt and shame to what should be discovery and intimacy.

For Fadela, it was a double weight. On one side, the expectations of Jehovah’s Witnesses: purity before marriage, total self-control, and a long list of what was not allowed. On the other side, the expectations rooted in Algerian Muslim traditions, particularly around female virginity. There’s something called la chemise — the idea that a bride should physically prove her virginity on the wedding night, by producing a blood-stained sheet. That’s not just pressure. That’s trauma waiting to happen.

For both of us, that pressure took something away. It didn’t allow our intimacy to unfold naturally. There was always someone else in the room — figuratively speaking. The elders, the religious doctrines, the cultural norms, the family expectations. So even when we were in love, even when we wanted to explore each other, we were haunted by limits we didn’t set for ourselves.

Before marriage, we did experience intimacy. We spent nights together. We kissed, touched, held each other. And every time, we drew lines—telling ourselves, “this is okay,” “we’re not crossing that line,” “this still counts as clean.” The truth is, we did pretty much everything besides crossing that final line, and we felt good doing so. Often, the guilt only came later. It was sincere, but it was also suffocating. Desire became something to negotiate with guilt. We rarely pulled away because of how it felt — only if we were afraid someone might find out. The shame wasn’t internal in those moments; it was external, imposed by the threat of discovery or judgment.

That said, once we were married, I would say we still had a quite fulfilling sex life over the years — even if it came with ups and downs, frustrations, and fights. We had our fair share of fun under the sheets. But even then, the mental residue of guilt and the framework we were raised in didn’t disappear completely. We still had to navigate the invisible walls built by the doctrines that shaped us.

The shame around desire doesn’t disappear just because the religion is gone. Even now, years after waking up, there are moments when guilt creeps in — sometimes around wanting too much, sometimes around wanting differently. Like any couple, we sometimes face a mismatch in libido. But when you've been taught that your worth is tied to how well you fulfill a "role" — the good husband, the submissive wife — those natural differences become sources of guilt and self-doubt. You wonder if you’re broken. You wonder if your love is enough. And that’s heartbreaking.

Pleasure, too, becomes complicated. It was always presented to us as conditional: a gift from Jehovah, yes, but one wrapped in rules. So even years later, there's a hesitation in claiming it freely. There’s a fear of being too much, or not enough. A fear of being seen.

And when it comes to emotional intimacy, there’s another layer: the lack of vocabulary. We were never taught how to speak openly about our needs or boundaries — especially not around sex. We were taught obedience, not communication. Repression, not expression. So even today, putting words to what we feel is a struggle. And when you can’t find the words, connection suffers — not for lack of love, but for lack of tools.

These scars don’t vanish overnight. It’s been over two years since I woke up, and a year and a half since we fully left. But the damage shows up still — in the questions, in the tears, in the frustration of trying to move forward without a map. In some ways, we’re still catching up on a part of ourselves that was never allowed to grow. And yet… we're here. Still trying. Still holding on all the while deeply being in love.

In this post, I’ve focused on the early emotional and sexual terrain we had to navigate after leaving the religion — how deeply the framework had shaped our relationship, and how hard it’s been to unlearn shame, guilt, and rigid roles.

In Part 2, I’ll explore the road forward: the desire to grow together, the fears and hopes that surface in the wake of such drastic change, and how we’re learning to rebuild — not just a marriage, but an honest and evolving connection between two people who still choose each other.