Who leaves first, the husband or wife? (page 2)

freemindfade

Religion is an emotional institution.

That being said, men despite some beliefs are subject to emotion and women can be very rational. But in general I hope I am not putting my foot in my mouth here, but hopefully we can say that women generally speaking are more emotional than men. For instance, with me and my wife, she gets extremely emotional whenever she thinks about here deceased grandfather and father, and relates this single issue to the strength of her faith. She has to believe she can see them again. I don't consider myself devoid of emotion, but tend to desire to separate emotion from rationality. And not to say I have always been this way, but it can be learned.

Religion and JW's especially exploit EMOTION. Fear, anger, sadness. Sit down at any meeting and the talk starts off with how bad life is and how miserable we all are, plays on our sadness over loss, disappointment with "bad" people, uses guilt to control. At its core its emotion driven, not reason like JW's think they are. I even used to tell people when defending my faith, that witnesses are different because its rational, how freaking embarrassing I ever said such a thing.

So I guess what I am getting at is there may (i don't know one way or the other), may be more men, simply for the emotional nature of religion.

OneEyedJoe

DB - I'm not sure you read the OP....

Another husband first here. In my case I'm sure it's because of a number of aspects of my personality, some of which are likely due to my gender. I'm not very social, and I'm more confident in my ability to think for myself than my wife, both of which make leaving easier. I'm also an INTJ (personality that is least likely to believe in god(s) and also has a higher incidence in males.).

Women tend to think a little more emotionally, and since cults rely heavily on emotional manipulation, this may be a disadvantage. On the other hand, that may just change how they wake up, since there's certainly plenty of emotional abuse in the cult. In some places women are also more likely to be under socialized since they may be less likely to work or they stay home and take care of the kids, etc whereas men may have more of a social structure at work. This could certainly lead to a higher dependence on the cult and therefore make it less likely that they'd be willing to leave.

All of these factors are by no means universal and probably only make incremental impact on the likelyhood of leaving though, and I don't think the difference between men and women leaving is necessarily huge. An informal poll here may also be somewhat skewed, since it seems like men are more likely to take to internet forums than women (at least I'm assuming that's the case based solely on the leg humping that always occurs on forums when it is discovered that a poster is a woman)

_Morpheus

@oub- im only going with first hand experiances in my unofficial noncertified poll, so i will count you as a husband first

So after ob and OEJ, we have:

husband - 3

wife - 1

wife mentally out first but husband spoke out first - 1

husband mentally out first but wife spoke out first - 0

Simon

Of the couple's I could think of who left the majority were the husband first.

In computer speak it's a LIFO queue: Last In First Out. Most people I could think of tended to have the wife join first.

A generalization but I think it's likely the result of several factors:

It's more difficult for the wife to leave and break the taboo of 'disobeying headship' at the same time whereas it's easier for the husband to refuse to go.

Women tend to be more involved in the social aspects whereas men tend to be more analytical thinkers

Sweeping generalizations so obviously not applicable in all cases.

_Morpheus

*cough cough*... Its been noted that the sites owner didnt give a personal response for tabulation ;)

Gentledawn

In my family, I left first (wife). Husband is still in, but I think he's finally catching on; he's missing a lot of meetings and has missed 'field serve-us' (didn't report any activity for whole month) at least 3 times in the past 6 months. Here's to hoping.

The woman I initially studied with left (officially DA'd, letter to elders and all) about a decade or more ago, along with all her children. Her husband remarried and is still 'in'.

Wife - 2

Husband (s) - 0

freemindfade

OneEyedJoe said it very well. I have always been the social force in my marriage, but I feel i rely on feeling the warmth of the congo much less than the wife. I have much closer, sincere friends outside that I don't have to hold to as high a idea of perfection.

In our halls I always reached out to make friends that we still area very close with to this day, moving to new hall in new state, in faded status, I go to the meetings but feel no desire to make this my friends and family, I am nice but don't do my usual thing. So we have no friends lol. The wife has the usual pioneer older/middle aged sister friends, but their friendships are just around that, field service.

Anyway, well said OneEyedJoe

Oogie

Haven't left yet, but my husband is still asleep.

Xanthippe

Ok I'm just going to say it. I cannot believe men are still churning out the bullshit about they are more rational and women are more emotional. Don't you remember where you learnt this bullshit? You think you are free of WTS teachings?

My husband and I left at the same time but for years I had been saying the Watchtower is full of contradictions and the elders treat the brother and sisters like dirt. I even said at one time let's just move, rent a cottage somewhere and not go to the meetings for a while. I told this story before on this site. My husband said no. About two years later we both left together, broken and in a bad way, I wish he had listened to me.

truthseekeriam

We both stop attending together, however I started researching and left mentally before my husband.

Who leaves first, the husband or wife?

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