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A few years ago I lived in a neighborhood that was becoming quite urban.  It was a convenient neighborhood to easily go door to door.  You name it, I had people knocking on my door on some days almost every 15 min for almost every purpose you can think of.   I had them come asking me if I’d heard the good news (about Jesus Christ), do I need a lawn service, maid service, security system, estimate for new windows/siding/roofing/sun room, selling candy/cookies/fruit/magazine subscriptions/cable tv/gift wrapping paper/frozen pizzas, etc.  I even had one guy said he had a truck load of new furniture that had been refused by the store and he’d sell it cheap just to get rid of it.  I work and deal with people (pleasant and not so pleasant) all day long and when I come home, I don’t need an onslaught of marketing pounding on my door.  In the weeks preceding any election, we’d get the political pollsters with the surveys, and the local candidates shaking hands, passing out stickers, asking to put up posters in your front yard.  I’d get the charities, disease of the month club, orphans/widows of police/firemen/soldiers, etc.  I had a few charities who didn’t want a donation, but could I send a flier to 20 of my neighbors (asking them for donations).  (A quick way to deal with any charity is to ask them what percentage of the donation actually goes to the charity - anywhere from 8%-20% is typical, and then tell them to go away and they don’t come back).  If I installed a turn style at the end of the driveway and charged a quarter for everyone who knocked on my door, I’d be a rich woman by now.  I had a ‘No Soliciting" sign right next to my door - no one knew what it meant.  I considered having a sign made up saying:

NO Solicitation

NO Trespassing

Do Not try to sell me things or services.

Do Not talk to me about religion or politics.

I Do Not want any estimates.

I Do Not want to take any surveys.

Violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

But then I realized I’d need to print it up in about 6 different languages.  Not answering the door didn’t help.  A few times I answered the door with the dinner burning, the baby crying, the phone ringing - I’d yank open the door and yell "WHAT!?" and they’d back away fairly quickly.   Eventually they all learned not to come to my house.  I discovered that yelling at strangers and telemarketers was great therapy and free.  We now live out in the countryside.  No one comes door to door (too far to walk between houses).  An occasional horse gets out of it’s pasture, and we hear farm animals sometimes.  I love our new neighborhood!

I used to get a lot of religious types pushing their beliefs. Finally I answered the door when I had one hand on the dog’s collar and I told them if they came on my property again, I would set the dog on them. After that I frequently saw them in the neighborhood, but not at my house.

I did not tell the dog that I was lying about him, he was very gentle, but 45 pounds.

Great posts!

LW1: about three years ago, my dog woke me up at about 4:30 in the morning, I looked outside, and there were two kids with backbacks walking up my front yard toward my door.  I started pounding on the window and they took off. I called my police and after a drama that took about 2 hours (including me in the back of a darkened police car having to identify them), the scumbags were taken into custody.  As I sat in the back of the car giving my statement to the police, they noticed that I have a "No Trespassing" sign clearly posted on my tree.

It turns out that because I had watched these little creeps (both with police records a mile long and parents that make more in a year than most people make in a LIFETIME, so so sad) actually IN my yard and the sign was clearly posted, it made it a crime for these kids to trespass on my land.  That was enough to throw them in the slammer.  They had been suspects in a rash of neighborhood robberies, and that "No Tresspassing" sign was the thing that broke up the gang.

My point?  You should probably have a No Trespassing sign up in your yard ANYWAYS! If the JWs do come to your door, I would go with Nancy Pea’s statement of disfellowship.  I dated a guy who was disfellowed and they REALLY cut you off (it’s the threat of that that they use to keep people hooked, apparently, since most JWs belong to the "religion" with their entire families).  If it’s the Mormons, I tell the truth: that my great great grandfather was with the posse that lynched Joseph Smith.  That usually gets them running away from me.

LW2: I feel your pain.  I am very close to my brothers, and have felt their heartbreak as clearly as if it were my own, when they have been hurt by women.  However, as one poster said, you are tied to this woman forever because of the child.  So you are going to have to get over this and move on.

You don’t say how close to her you were before any of this happened.  If you were close, the cheating probably feels like a personal betrayal as well.  If you weren’t close, it would be interesting to know if you approved of her before the wedding.

One suggestion would be to take her out to lunch to talk to her, outside of the family get-together environment, to talk to her about your feelings.  Do this in a public space, and do NOT have a whole group of people with you, maybe you  and a friend (significant other?) and your sister in law and brother.  Get your feelings out there…. just say something like "I know you guys have gotten back together and our working on your marriage and that’s good for you, but I can’t get over being angry at the pain you put my brother through."  Maybe just saying this will clear your anger (it has for me in the past), but it may well get her (and your brother) talking.  The affair is the proverbial Elephant in the Room for your whole family: somebody has to point it out or it will eventually stomp on everybody (including their marriage by the way).

Best of luck… and happy weekend to all!

I’d sure like to "hear" from a JW now…lol.

Where I am, we do not have a lot of JW’s, but we do have something worse.  House of Prayer.  They used to follow me around the grocery store, out to my car, they would not leave me alone at gas stations, and they would come to my house.  House of Prayer is a church down here but not one that seems to be on the "Good" side.  I had actually called teh pastor and complained and he actually tried to get me to join! I have told them before at the grocery store that I am a Satanist but that only made them push harder.  One of them followed me out to the car and would not leave me alone until i backed up.  I told them 1 time that I was about to back up in my car and they may wanna move, well they didn’t so I backed up, and they actually moved when they realized my car was moving.  (I did it very slowly so that way I wouldn’t actually hit them.) I could recognize them a mile away.  When they approached me I told them, You’re from the House of Prayer aren’t you, and they asked how i knew and i told them they had the reputation fo a cult all around town.  They tried to correct me and I then would go into a series of questions such as "Are you guys allowed to wear makeup?" Are women allowed to wear pants or jeans, Are men and women and children allowed to sit together at the church? When they said no to these questions I then told them they are a cult because God does not require any of these from anyone.  I told them that God is happy if we just show up to church or even if we stayed home that He was happy if we prayed to Him praising Him and asking Him for His help.   I then told them that at my church you could show up in your pajamas and they didn’t care as long as you attended. They evenetually left me alone after I let them know what God is actually about. lol or at least what I thought He was about. lol.  They used to follow me around the store and in parking lots and stuff like that.