Let's welcome Rebelwife! (page 3)

greendawn

Welcome, getting over the WTS spell can take time especially for those that were in for many years. A good thorough research of their ideology and history can speed things up.

Oh, hi, everybody! I have been lurking since the summer of '04. As far as I can tell (because we don't talk about this very much at all), he was/is a 3rd generation born-in. Was DFd (disfigured -- lol) when I met him. gotta go he's home.

RebelWife

My bad. The dogs starting going nuts for some reason, so I thought he was home. Yes, I have to sneak. That rattled me. Where was I? Ah, yes -- he was disfigured when we met. All I knew about JWs was they don't do holidays and they knock on doors & are very pushy, but run away from questions & don't come back. My opinion of them was that they were devout, but misguided. I was a kinda-sorta Christian who had attended three church services at three different churches in my entire life. How do I make paragraphs? (I haven't been paying attention. Sorry.)

RebelWife

As we were falling in love, we talked about his religion because it was part of who he was and it seemed like it was still important to him. I had questions that, of course, he couldn't answer. So he gave me the little "reasoning" book. I read that. Was unimpressed. I did note that a lot of the scriptural citations didn't have a dadgum thing to do with the subject at hand. I thought that was really weird. I WANTED to believe the same as he did because, despite not being a churchgoer, God is important to me. I never equated that with church, though. Anyway, he began to get really frustrated with me because I couldn't understand. This turned into some pretty ugly arguments. I couldn't understand why he thought this crap made sense.

RebelWife

I prayed fervently for help in understanding what he believed. That didn't help any. I finally asked God to show me the truth -- one way or the other because that's what's really important. Okay, THAT helped. I asked him the burning question: "If you go back, how would that make my life different?" Got a very short list, and only one of the things would be any different. I could deal with that. We decided religion was a subject we wouldn't discuss. Since he had told me he was never going back, I didn't think it was a big deal.

Twitch

Welcome

RebelWife

A few months after we were married, he announced that he was going back. Uh, excuse me? I found out that this meant he would be spending time away from me nearly every day for this and had a meltdown. Things got really ugly and I almost left him. As we were arguing, more stuff seemed to come out, which infuriated me even more. Because of the things I was saying, he accused me of reading "apostate stuff" on the internet. Had never even heard that word before and hadn't read anything from any outside sources, unless you consider the Bible to be "apostate stuff." Things died down, he promised not to go back, life returned to normal. A few months later we had the same scenario. That time, I started looking on the internet, which led me here.

RebelWife

I think he wants to believe me, but is just so afraid. My favorite question for him is something along the lines of: If you believe they're right, what do you think of me? And why do you want to be around people who think of me like that? (There was a December 15, 2005 or '06 article referenced on here about worldly people = cockroaches.) He keeps trying to tell me they don't think like that and he certainly doesn't, and I keep telling him I've read some of their publications and know what they think, which means he must, too, if he believes they're right. He does the cognitive dissonance dance very well.

loosie

RebelWife

I told you I had a lot to say. Probably sorry you asked. If I disappear, it's because my honey's home and I don't want to fight. I try to inject a lot of worldly-people-are-really-nice information into our conversations, always pointing out when people do charitable things, etc., and little comments about religion or a scripture. PARAGRAPH We do lots of things that would be frowned upon or that he would have to stop if he went back. I think he realizes that he will lose me if he goes back. Not that I would necessarily leave physically, but that I'd check out emotionally. I feel that sometimes I'm being manipulative and even abusive when I challenge his beliefs during the semi-annual meltdowns. I have to keep in mind the abuse he's been through and not compound it. He needs to feel safe with me and sometimes I really screw that up. He has told me that being with me makes him feel like he can be himself, for the first time in his life. I hate it when I turn into Ms. Crazy.

Let's welcome Rebelwife!

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