It's true because it happened to me last night. I knew it was trouble when she started looking at my Kindle. Once she got to the short stories I wrote 3 years ago, autobiographical, some of it involving her, I knew I wouldn't be going to bed before 1:00 (it was 11:40 p.m. by then). Then she saw 'The Art of War' on my Kindle and asked me for the second time--not remembering what I said when she asked about it before--why I was reading a book called 'The Art of War'. I explained to her that the principles found therein can be applied to business and leadership and do not necessarily have to involve killing people.
She then explained that God hates violence. Psalm 11:5--I know. It's in every WT about violent video games. Anyway, I pointed out that odds are, the Israelites used some of the same strategies discussed in 'The Art of War'. But "God-approved" warfare is different, she said. Tell that to people who were on the receiving end of genocide. Bob Dylan's song "With God On Our Side" had greater meaning all of a sudden. "If God's on our side, then he'll stop the next war." Wise words.
But I found it odd. Is reading a book on military strategy the same as loving or participating in violence? Is reading the Bible's accounts of disemboweled people, people being stabbed till their bowels come out, and the like--is that acceptable? How am I drawn closer to God by reading of his orders to kill men, women, and children? Is this how we should approach those who don't agree with us? We wouldn't teach our children to kill people of a different faith, I should hope. But is God teaching us to do that?
So, she gets back on Avatar. Mind you, I watched Avatar one time, two months ago. She cut it off due to a scene where the people were worshipping a tree. When she asked why I watched the rest of the movie, I explained to her that I felt the people were simply ignorant and attributed something supernatural to this tree that really had a scientific explanation--albeit an explanation not explicitly stated in the film. I considered it like the cultures you might meet in a Star Trek episode. It's a different culture--might seem bizarre to us, but it's really just different, like any other different form of worship. I also felt that given the larger themes in the film about valuing the beauty of our planet were far more important than this one scene I didn't agree with. That, and I wanted to see the finale--every good sci-fi film has a great finale. But I didn't assign anything demonic or occult-related to it all.
Anyway, she felt strongly that I should throw the movie away, which as of this moment I have not done. She explained that she was afraid that the demons might attack her or the baby (especially since the baby can't pray for herself, she said). My mother claimed that demons told her the JWs were the ones who knew the truth about them. I never questioned that story until it occurred to me that if the demons were real, why would they guide anyone to the one true religion? It's against their very nature to just bring that up to someone in conversation.
I forgot to bring up the occult origins of Jehovah's Witnesses, what with occult numerology and pyramidology. But I should have--I was just reading a quote on that issue on the WT Library CD. She brought up the poem about 'if Jesus were here, would you watch the same things?' It occurred to me that Jesus would not have associated himself with a religion dabbling in the occult and proclaiming it as his truth.
I made the error that commonly afflicts me when I become irrational and attacked the JW belief system, mentioned the Sept. 15th WT and its idolatrous statements about the slave class. Not that it mattered. I was just frustrated with her appointing herself ruler of the house. I don't believe in a concept of headship, per se; I believe married couples work as equals towards a common cause. She actually claimed she was the one 'wearing the pants' in the household. Now this is someone who never made much more than minimum wage and quit her job 1 month after we got married. So how exactly is she wearing the pants? By demanding her way or the highway? That counts for little.
The tensions finally exploded with her removing her wedding ring and declaring, "I don't want to be under your headship anymore." Practically a statement of separation right there. I could have simply told her to go back to her mom. But I felt it wasn't right to allow something stupid like a disagreement over Avatar to destroy our marriage. I mean, that's insane.
I tried telling her of how hard it was, waiting for her inside the organization while she was DF'd for more than 3 years. I didn't ask for this, to find out all these terrible things the Society was responsible for. If I'd just held on a bit longer, maybe we'd have a halfway decent marriage now. I'd have...taken the blue pill, believed what I wanted to believe.
She asked if I was sure I wanted to work on the marriage, feeling that she was the one doing all the work. She feels I don't talk to her enough, that she has to have a nervous breakdown just to get attention from me. Gee, what's wrong with a phone call during the day to just say you love me? Wouldn't that be an easier way to get my attention, if I'm really that inattentive? I'm getting little sleep at night and going to the grocery store or doing chores once I get home from work, so there's not a lot to say, other than talking about what stuff I'm supposed to get from the store. I'm just too exhausted to do anything but manage the logistics side of the household. And I'm not even going to meetings!
I really just want her and her daughter to be happy, and if she's stressed out--and I'm not even sure why, I mean, where is all the loving JW support that's supposed to comfort her in the wake of my DF'ing?--then it's not reasonable for her to stay with me. I don't care about freakin' Avatar. The movie wasn't THAT good; I just felt offended that my moral decency was being called into question over it, that the suggestion was being made that my thinking was corrupt because I happened to like most of the movie. I thought it was an asinine thing to be worked up over, so I hadn't bothered to throw it away. That, and Blu-rays are freaking expensive. Would rather sell it on eBay.
But if she's expecting me to get rid of everything that's violent, that's like...everything PG-13 that I have, plus my Batman animated cartoons, you name it. Probably 60% of my collection, even Star Trek would have to go. ... And I can't believe I'm even considering this, but the fact is, the movies were there for me while she was out making a child with someone who wasn't even decent enough to take care of it. My relationship with them is frankly, far better. That's because I'm just a little inept socially. And I did just find out I was in a cult my entire life. Tends to screw with your sense of reality.
She made it clear that this was all conditional love on her part, she was expecting a JW husband, though she acquired said husband via breaking JW rules and sweeping it under the rug, then selling said husband up the river to save her own skin. I loved her as a person, beyond the religion, beyond anything else. I find it tragic that that love is a one-way street because of this cult.
We are once more in separate beds at night--it works out, since we weren't exactly getting intimate anytime soon. Only thing is, all my clothes are in the other room, and she locks the door at night, so I have to wake her up to open the door for me. Man, I feel like a total b****. Trying to preserve some sense of honor with this has just...made me the sucka.
Well, at least it's warm enough in the other room--and it is my old bed anyway, so it's sort of like homecoming in this home that just isn't my home and probably never was. I feel like I'm asking for it, though. Just by saying all this. Basically, things went south when she turned me in for having doubts. If it was just for us sleeping together, I might've been able to withstand that. She didn't need to bring that up to them. I suppose, I was selfish, in that I chose to get DF'd to spite her for turning me in. I could've bowed down to the slave class. She actually felt that I was right in telling them how I really felt, as she said last night, because otherwise it would've made her look like a liar. So I guess we were all looking out for #1, in this situation.
After going to bed at 2:00, and waking up at 6:45, I was still in a state of shock. Although we're trying to communicate more, I feel so wounded that I really don't want to try anymore. I also know that I chose this path, and I brought all these problems on her, which made her so angry in the first place. It's my fault. I have to make it right.
As the breadwinner, as...the man of the house, it has become clear that I am unfit to lead this family, unfit to be her husband and unfit to be a father to a child who will be raised and will suffer exactly as I did growing up as a JW. I cannot change that. This isn't my child, as much as I love her. I'm still an outsider no matter what I do. Unless I surrender to assimilation, give myself freely to the Borg. But I cannot. "Never compromise--even in the face of Armageddon."
I may encourage her to go back to living with her mom, for the sake of her daughter and her own emotional well-being. If she really wants to be free of the marriage altogether, perhaps I can find some means of doing the horrible adultery route and just going through the divorce stuff. But only if she agreed to it, which would make her a party to it, which would be wrong, but given that I'm an evil apostate, she'd have plausible deniability with ease. I would not cheat on her just because things have gone to...Gehenna. It's just a possible escape plan for her I'm floating around in my head. I do not need to escape, even if I have no will to continue. There's nothing left for me now but to wait for death. I've lived fully, done everything I ever wanted to do. I can die now. I accept that.
She deserves better than a life of sorrow with me. I failed her, dishonored her, betrayed her. I don't belong in her life. Maybe she can find someone better who will take better care of her in Jehovah's way. Yes, I just said "in Jehovah's way". No, I don't care if it's cult terminology. It is what it is.
Nearly losing my wife is...I feel sick inside. Like I felt when she first got DF'd in 2005, like I felt after she got reinstated in 2008 and I was told to keep my distance. A grief that cannot be consoled. I fought the gods, and the gods won. I volunteered for this. It was worth trying. It was beautiful, just for a moment. We were happy again, like at the beginning. Like it was supposed to be. I failed to keep it that way.
What good is it to be out of the cult when the person you love most thinks you're a liar, a monster? It's meaningless. What good is freedom if you can't share it with the ones you love?
What does it matter? Most everyone here has real issues, and...you're made of stronger stuff. Probably just laugh it off and tell me to get over myself.
I guess I'd hoped we'd make it through a year, even much longer than that, really. Soon enough, I'll be a 'proverbial saying and a taunt' at the KH, just like other men there who married people that were not well-liked. No matter. If it does finally end, maybe I can find something more around the next turn. Was thinking...have never gone west. Would like to dip my toes in the Pacific before I die. Which hopefully, will be soon, too.
--sd-7