by flipper 48 Replies latest jw friends
Flipper,
are you sure your ex and my ex aren't twins? I have a similar situation where my step-son is 25, happily married, runs his own business, etc.. The kid is loving life, and he's the most honorable and likeable kid I know. You would think my ex-wife (his mom) would be happy, content, with that... HELL NO. LOL. She has pounded him with the guilt-trip stuff, but not as bad as your ex-wife. Your ex-wife is a real treat (spiritual food of course!).
Scottiebear
I'm with the TireBiter on this one, Mr. Flipper (may you have peace!)... certainly as to kudos for the son... and sadness for the mom. I mean, while I can understand everyone's anger (although not entirely, sorry)... I guess I'm wondering what more we really could expect her to say/write. This is, after all, what "they" know, isn't it? ALL they know? And pretty much all that they're permitted to know? And so, when I read it, I "hear" a woman who believes her child has abandoned God... and so is doing her best to say, "I don't quite understand what you're going through, but please come back - I'm/we're here for you." Which is what most mothers would say... under ANY similar circumstance... even if the tables were turned and she was the one who was out and the child on their way in.
Rather than anger, I felt sorrow for her. TRULY sorry. Like non-smokers feel for smokers who've got that awful cough thing going on. Or how thin/fit people feel about severely overweight people. You know, that "train-wreck, but I can't look away" kind of feeling... where it's felt that they COULD "do something" about whatever... and you are more than willing to HELP... but you know there really isn't anything you CAN do unless/until the person WANTS help? My heart grieved for her, NOT for the loss of her son... but, like Tirebiter said, her "blindness." It is REALLY pretty severe... and painful to look at.
Don't get me wrong - you know I'm not a WTBTS sympathizer/apologist. I think here, though, the "mom" in me was touched. My advice (if anyone cares to hear it, which I highly doubt, but here goes anyway)? Help the son prepare a response that shows mom that everything she believes in and stated here... is either improperly and unnecessarily guilt inducing, inaccurate, or a downright LIE. Do this, dear Mr. Flipper, and one of two things will happen: (1) either SHE'LL get it... and get out, or (2) she won't write any similar letters any time soon. Sometimes silence is less understood to be as apathy, as it is to be agreement, affirmation, perhaps even accepance.
Just my $0.02... for whatever it's worth (in this case, $0.02).
Again, peace to you (and Mrs. Flipper)!
Your servant and a slave of Christ,
SA
(and moms really know how to "do" guilt!).
She certainly gave it her best shot. The cult only allows a close relationship with other cult members so there is a degree of separation that must be a source of anxiety to any mother. I see it more that she misses her son but is constrained by her beliefs and with all the talk about how close to the end we are she has obviously taken this to heart. When the end doesn't come again she may settle down but at the moment congregations are being whipped up to another 1975 like frenzy. Living with this constant anticipation will make anyone slightly irrational
It must be hard for your son to receive such an email a simple acknowledgement of her love for him would have had a greater impact than this. I suggest in future he reads the first and last sentence and misses out the rest.
Ok, so my first reaction to this is she uses the word 'son' W-A-A-A-Y too much (unless you've subsituted his name with the word). These types of communications used to upset me a lot when I was younger and my parents were more zealous. Your son will need to decide how best to handle them so he can have his own inner peace.
This is a very typical kind of JW communication between parent and child (doesn't matter how old the child is... I once told my Dad that my Mom still sees me as a 5 year old girl back when she was alive. I think I was around 30 at the time).
At any rate, I have experienced this type of communication from my parents in the past. This is why I had to set boundaries. One way I did this was to tell my Aunt that if all my parents could talk about when we visited was Jehovah, I wasn't going to visit. This got back to my Mom. It worked quite well as they hadn't been listening to me up until that point. Interesting, isn't it?
Whenever my parents crossed these boundaries I would try to be kind and loving and just change the subject. Sometimes I would just sit there and not respond. Other times I would physically get up and go outside for a walk. We didn't have email back then, though, so your ex gets to ramble on without any response from your son during the discourse. If the communication was one of mean spirit on the point of my parents, I would then make it a point not to visit them for a while. Like several months. It would make my Mom wonder why we weren't coming to see them. I had to invoke my own measures for balance and harmony. Of course, my job was mucho busy so I had a valid excuse.
I think your son should save this email. Perhaps one day your ex will actually start questioning things. Sometimes reading stuff like this years later can be a real eye-opener. It's also a great example of attempting to manipulate him and there's no denying that. I think a big part of the problem is that your son hasn't had a bad life outside of the organization and this flies in the face of what your ex believes.
I think most JWs want their worldly family to have crappy lives so it proves them right... and this just doesn't always happen. So they try to make you miserable. It's a condition I observed in my own family. When someone feels crappy, how dare you feel good. How dare you have a good life when I don't.
Maybe your son should just not read the emails from her for a while. Kind of like my not visiting for a while technique. He can just tell her he hasn't had time to respond to his emails.
Hi Flipper,
Glad to hear your son is in a happy place. My Brother tried using the guilt trip on me last time he saw me, saying "you are going to die at the Big A, your children may even die if you dont come back to the truth..." At this stage I stood up and called him a dickhead (at an ASSembly hall) and he hasnt spoken to me since as I am a bad association. I am not df'd, I am just inactive and dont go to meetings. Yet his super spiritual hypocritical wife has labeled me an apostate, so he cannot talk to me. But, oh, he and his fellow MS buddies can all send porno emails to each other...... Go figure...
Mattieu....
Flipper,
I can see now why you go for the positive ..that was such a negative letter that it even depressed me. No wonder he doesn't want to be around her. It has to be so hard for him because I know he probably loves his Mom and wants a good relationship with her but when she talks like that who would want to be around her?
As much as I loved my JW hubby and his family, I have such peace now that I don't have to hear that stuff anymore. I can feel the pain your son must be going through as I too was hurt when those kinds of things were said to me. But they just don't understand how they sound or the pain they cause. The pain is not caused by what they say so much but that they could actually say those things to someone they supposedly love.
She really believes she made her point about the Rebel song and will probably be bragging about it to the whole congregation. I really don't think they realize how very hateful they sound. Especially from a group that promotes love for all mankind, so much that they would walk till they had blisters on their feet. ( I didn't think they were supposed to brag about things like that?)
And then you have the great.."There is no time for that" speech regarding growing a garden ( Don't they have farms at the Watchtower farms?) And how they will enjoy cleaning up the earth ( that they helped mess up )
No time, you know, the one they gave about school, babies etc many many years ago?
Snoozy....Wondering how Flipper Jr enjoyed being called "Satan's son"?
dear mom,
don't worry.... jah promises you wont even remember me
in the new system so you wont have to miss me for an
eternity
sorry, or not, that i wont be there to help you with the
several thousand bodies you will have to bury as part
of your "roll up your sleeves" cleansing of the earth....
have a great forever mom
This reminds me why I stopped communicating with my jw mother when I was still a good jw....too abusive. Almost 10 years and no contact by me and hers in the shredder. She does not have my e-mail, thank goodness.
Bro,
Aren't you glad that your ex-wife is your ex-wife?! Reading her letter is like glass shards in the bum.
JK
He wanted his son to experience the fun and great pleasure that would come from the experience of growing plants , and yet be able to ask the Master Gardener of all knowledge how plants grow best. "
Holy Jesus----can't she even plant a f*cking plant without asking God how to do it?
" Are you finding that your way of life is giving you a deep peace and contentment ?
I hope your son writes here back and says "Yes. I am very happy, I have a wonderful girlfriend whom I love and I feel a wonderful deep peace and contentment with my life----far more than what I did when I went to the Kingdom Hall." Given how crazy your ex is though, she'd probably either ignore the statement or try blaming you for "influencing" your son to rebel against his mother and his great god Jehobah. The bottom line is: Witnesses are trained to believe that it is impossible to be happy unless you're a Dub, end of story. If you tell them that you ARE happy, they believe you're either lying, or under the mind control of Satan.
I'm very glad your son realizes the emotional blackmail game your ex is playing. My parents do not play those games with me, but occassionally my mother will tell me that "so and so was asking about you" or "everyone at the Hall really misses you." I've told her point blank that I miss some of them too, but that I cannot go back and listen to crap that I know isn't right.
