Ashitaka,
My wife has been depressed each time we see our JW friends. She doesn't want to see them anymore, because it reminds her of what she left behind, and it makes her feel bad.Even if you've been out a long time, interacting with true-believing JWs requires a large reserve of patience and understanding.
Your wife is probably grieving and may not be strong enough to face your JW friends right now. It's like ending a romantic relationship--you're asking for trouble if you sit around looking at old photos and listening to songs that bring back memories. Until the memories don't hurt quite so much, it's usually a good idea to put these things away for awhile.
It's not an easy task to rebuild a network of friends from scratch, but you've got to start somewhere. Anywhere there are people, your wife is likely to make new friends--an exercise class, an art class, a book discussion, a concert. If she does what she likes, she'll likely meet people she'll enjoy as friends.
I've offered to go back to meetings for a while to help her break away. She never wants to go back, but her guilt and anger make her so uncomfortable around active JW's.....it's really bothering her.Has she considered therapy for her depression? It helped me tremendously, and I highly recommend it. She can examine the roots of her guilt, express her anger, will get the personal attention she needs, and will learn new skills to cope with the emotions she'll experience as she draws away from the JWs.
If she doesn't want to seek therapy, urge her to express her feelings somehow. Listen to her whenever she needs to talk. You may feel uncomfortable as you listen, especially if you are experiencing the same grief. You may feel that you have to fix things somehow, and not knowing exactly how may make you feel powerless. Remember that your wife does not need you to fix things for her. What she needs is someone who will understand, someone who will let her pour out the pain.
Encourage her to write about her feelings. Maybe she can write letters to the people she will miss, letters that she will not send or mail--these letters are for her only. There are some good suggestions at the site below for writing letters in a way that will work through anger, blame, hurt, sadness, fear, guilt, love, gratitude, and forgiveness.
Love Letter Technique
http://www.oahouston.org/oa-Love-Letter-Technique.htm
Any good books out there on breaking away from controlling organizations, especially concentrating on keeping the friendships but not the allegiance to the organization in question? I'm really having a hard time helping her with this. I'm always there for her, but I don't have any solutions to her sadness in this regard.I know there are books specifically about leaving high-control religious organizations such as When God Becomes a Drug: Breaking the Chains of Religious Addiction and Abuse by Father Leo Booth, and Toxic Faith by Steve Arterburn and Jack Felton. I have not read these two.
I was greatly helped by the books about codependency by Melody Beattie, Healing the Shame that Binds You by John Bradshaw, and Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns. While these books were helpful, I'll add the caveat that I don't think I would have emerged from depression with the books alone. I needed the weekly coaching of my therapist to actually put the principles I'd read into practice.
I work very hard to make her happy, but she's been feeling insecure about the future because she said that, "When I was a JW, I always had some kind of focus. No matter how blind it was, I miss having a direction to go in."I agree with Gopher--you cannot make your wife happy; only she can make herself happy.
Encourage her to think about what is important to her, what she values most. In what way would she like to make a difference? Maybe volunteer work would give her a focus. What has she always wanted to do? She knows what makes her unhappy; what makes her happy? That reminds me of another good book--Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow: Discovering Your Right Livelihood by Marsha Sinetar. Your wife doesn't sound particularly concerned about money right now, but the advice about doing what you love would still be helpful, I think.
After I left the JWs, I missed the program of "upbuilding" information. Granted, a lot of it wasn't all that upbuilding, but at least many people were trying to practice love and understanding as best they knew how. We're bombarded by bad news from the media, and I craved the quiet time to contemplate good things. One of the things I had to learn was how to nurture myself and make this quiet time for myself outside of the structure imposed by the JW ways.
Books about simple living satisfy my craving. Two very good ones are The Simple Living Guide and Simple Loving, both by Janet Luhrs. Another is Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach. The latter is like a non-religious yearbook for women. Maybe you could give her this book as a present. Here is the thought for today:
My business is not to remake myself,Ginny
But make the absolute best of what God made.
--Robert BrowningMaking the absolute best of ourselves is not an easy task. It is a pleasurable pursuit, it is the reason we were born, but it requires patience, persistence, and perseverance. For many of us, it also requires prayer. That's because we find it far easier to learn to live by our own lights when we access a Higher Source of Power to illuminate our path. The filmmaker and writer Julia Cameron calls this switching on "spiritual electricity" that transcends our own limitations.
In my own journey I have found this to be very true. Usually I limited the times I requested that the Power be turned on to the occasions when I was appearing in public: giving workshops, lecturing, holding business meetings. Then it occurred to me that this was like living in a house with electricity but turning on the lights only for a couple of hours every few months. And I wondered why I was frequently bumping into obstacles. So I started to ask for the Power to be switched on in my daily life: as a mother, a wife, a writer, and a friend. When I asked, it was turned on. When I didn't, I stayed in the dark. You don't have to be a master electrician to understand what's going on here: someone has to turn on the switch. Asking is the way of activating spiritual electricity. When there is Light we see remarkably well. We see with clarity. And what we can see if we look deep within is that the authentic self is the Soul made visible.
Do not try to remake yourself into something you're not. Just try making the best of what God made. The sacred art and craft of nurturing our souls and the souls of those we love is Simple Abundance soulcraft. Begin today by turning on the Light.