JPT, thanks for asking.
I wish I'd kept a blog. My memory is pretty bad, unfortunately - I can't really remember what I did last week, nevermind 2 years ago, but thats how long it has been since I first started my 'apostate' research.
At first, I kept it a secret. Something really bad happened, though, and it brought it out into the light. I nearly hit my wife one night. I was all twisted up inside, scared, angry and confused at what I was finding out about my religion. I was temperamental. Our oldest son was 3, and giving us a real hard time. He just wouldn't go to bed, and would be up all night trying to get out of bed and sneak into our room. I hadn't slept enough. And so, one night, arguing about something, I pinned her against the wall, screaming awful things, and nearly did more. I actually came off second best physically, because she scratched my face in defence.
So she left me for a day. We ended up at her parents house together, and talked about it with her parents. I humbled myself completely, apologised and we started to try and correct things. But this was when I owned up about my serious doubts. I stepped down as an MS, which was harder than I thought it would be. They don't take no for an answer!
Being a better person
Well, it took me about 6 months to work through my demons. By the end of 2006, I decided to stop going to meetings. Thats when I started to feel better. I just felt like a real person, and started being a better father and husband (and businessman too). My transformation didn't go unnoticed by my wife. So that would be one thing that started her doubting - instead of me becoming an amoral monster after leaving, I actually became a better person.
We had only brief arguments about actual apostate things. I was careful not to say anything that might 'damage her faith.' At this point I was being democratic, feeling everyone has a right to believe what they want. But in some ways, I was allowing her and everyone else to see me as the misguided fool - the one who had to apologize, the one who had to 'know when to keep his mouth shut' - essentially accepting that I was in the wrong. I told my wife I respected her for her faithfulness, because she is not a studious person who researches anything. She hardly knows anything about the bible anyway. So she was just being faithful to the organisation that had 'fed her' all these years. She'd never really had any bad experiences as a witness. At the time, I respected her for her loyalty.
Standing up for myself
But about 6 months ago, I realised that by shying away, keeping my mouth shut and so on, I was actually sending the message that I was wrong. That I felt guilty. But I didnt. I didn't feel guilty at all, quite the opposite - I feel more righteous now than ever. I feel like I'm standing up for truth, damn the consequences. Which means for me, nothing has changed - this is the way I was brought up - to withstand persecution for the sake of the truth. Except the truth was actually "The Truth(R)". And so I started to let that be known to my wife. I didn't bring up anything in particular. As of today, she knows nothing about Malawi and the UN thing or any flip flops or anything. Sometimes, in heated moments, I might have made a short remark like "they were registered with the UN, they've covered up pedophiles, they make doctrines up by voting and a 2/3 majority vote sets the doctrine!!" But never any proof, never any details, never any discussion. The only thing we have discussed thus far is the blood issue.
My children won't die over blood
A few months ago, I said to her I wanted to talk about blood, because the Society's view is wrong, and I'm not going to let my children die because of it - so we need to talk about this now, before it ever becomes an issue. I would hate to try and have the discussion while one of our children is in intensive care! My tone when I write is poor - I'm not a good writer. But I assure you I was very calm, mild and caring - though firm. My story about that is in another post, but the short version is we looked at the scriptures about blood, and she agreed that the scriptures do not support a blanket ban on eating blood, let alone tranfusing it. So we agreed our kids would have a transfusion if they needed it. And so would she. In hindsight, I think this was a major breakthrough. Here she was, willing to disobey the organisation, because she could see from the bible that they are wrong.
The Gorilla in the midst
A scientist of some sort did a study of visual cognition. He had group of students, half wearing black shirts, the other half wearing white. The were passing a ball amongst themselves - kind of like a non-competitive version of basketball. He videoed this. Then he showed the video to another group of students, and asked them to count how many times the ball was passed to a black-shirt. I think the answer was 13. Nevertheless, when he asked "who saw the gorilla", a surprising large number answered "what gorilla?". They didn't see the student in the gorilla suit who walked into the middle of the camera's vision, beat his chest, and walked off again. They were too busy watching the ball.
A few weeks ago, I realised, whilst trying to talk about a sexual issue with my wife, that we were living a lie. There was this big gorilla dancing between us, but we refused to see it. We couldn't talk about anything, because we couldn't talk about "the truth". So I passed out an ultimatum of sorts. I said I just can't live like this. If we can't sort ourslves out, I want to seperate. I don't know how we'd work it out, because I don't want it to affect the kids. We could carry on living together maybe, but agree that we are no longer 'husband and wife'. Honestly I don't know if that could have worked - but I said to her that if it wasn't for the kids, I would probably have left already. Not because I don't love her, because I do. It would have broken my heart. But it was breaking my heart every day to live with a gorilla inbetween us.
And so she let me tell her some of the reasons why I left. I still didn't talk about specifics - I talk about principles. I told her that I was always bothered about the music she used to listen to back when I was an MS. She listened to things like Metallica and Stevie Nicks (a 'witch'), GnR and so on. I would never have listened to that before - only during my rebellious teenage years did I listen to that sort of music. I explained how I used to see things - I tried to live my life by the principles espoused by the Society. Just because I couldn't get disfellowshipped for listening to 'bad music', didn't mean it was ok. I said, don't you wonder why I don't download illegal music and movies? Because it is stealing. I want my customers to pay for the products I supply them!!! Plenty of witnesses download illegally. So I went over this with more examples - how I am more interested in the truth than the benefits of "The Truth(R)". Sure, the Jehovah's Witnesses might do plenty of good things, but they are hypocrites - and I can't be a hypocrite. IT would be fine if they were like other religions which just got on and did their thing. But the Witnesses have made it 'their thing' to shit on everyone else, and denounce all other religions for their faults, when they have made the exact same mistakes.
I'm not sure, but I think the one thing that got to her was my stance on downloading. You would think an evil apostate wouldn't have any morals. But my morals are higher, because they are based on the reasoning of my mind, not on the latest interpretation of ancient scriptures. Just the day before, she had suggested I download the latest Futurama DVD-only movie. I had said "no, because if I download it and don't pay for it, they won't make any more. And I want them to make more. They've put a lot of work into making it, they deserve to be paid." The day after our big discussion, she said she felt guilty about that. Good.
That same night, in the long, long discussion, another illustration I used was of a court case. I said, imagine a man accused of murder. The court assembles, and the prosecution presents their evidence. Imagine now if the judge said "well, I'm convinced, he must be a murderer. And I'm not going to let a murderer try and defend himself in my court! The jury may begin deliberation." Only one side of the story? That's not right. So how come witnesses are not allowed to read apostate information? How come you aren't allowed, like a jury, to use YOUR MIND, to weigh up both sides and decide IN YOUR MIND, BEFORE GOD, what is truth? How can you stand before god's judgement, knowing you have only listened to one side of the story? Just for kicks, I threw in my hypothesis 'what if Satan is the true god?' If you don't hear both sides, you could be fighting against the true god himself!
Well thats about it. That discussion was only a few nights ago. She is kinda delaying actually looking at apostate info ... just getting herself used to the idea first. But she wants to know. I don't know if it was the court-case analogy or what, but now she feels angry that she hasn't been able to look at both sides. Its kinda insulting really, to basically be told you are too stupid to be able to look at another point of view and make up your own mind.
I know not all situations are the same, but I truly believe that being more bold, and sticking up for yourself is very important. Otherwise you just let them believe the lies they've been told about apostates. Keeping the peace and fading has its benefits ... but courageous denouncing of evil is required too. Its just the timing that is tricky.
best wishes everyone.
