I'm out my husband is still in and taking the kids to the hall. He says he is determined to keep our family together. He really loves me yet I am preparing for the worse case scenario.
In May we went on vacation with a family who's 8 year old son was baptized. Before the trip her grandparents kept saying how excited they were she was going to be meeting him. They kept bringing up he was recently baptized and that he has aux. pioneered 2 times already. While on vacation I watched this kid, he had no spark an 8 year old zombie. I was already doubting the religion & questioning this opened my eyes further. Seeing him scared me. I didnt want her to be like him yet that's what I had been grooming her for. At 6 she could write & type up her own talks, became an unbaptized publisher. She asked me if there was something wrong with her because she wasn't baptized or ready for baptism after our vacation and I told her no. I told her it's something very serious and no one is to push her into it if she's not ready at any age. Well I exited a month later.
I no longer push her to prepare for the meetings so now she spends a small fraction of the time she use to studying JW literature. I'm reading "Teach Your Child How to Think" and I 'm encouraging her to question everything. I've already told her what it would mean for our relationship if she got baptized. So I told her I will respect whatever decision she makes as long as she has thought about it carefully and has thoroughly researched everything she is expected to believe. I told her & my husband before she considers baptism i should be able to explain why I left. The fact that I now tell her she can dream about being whatever she wants and can be whatever she wants is huge. Whenever she spoke about being things she wanted to do or be I was guilty of shooting it down telling her that's for the new system. Those days are gone and I can already see the superstar mentality she had coming back. I hate that I was killing that in her. I'm glad I woke up soon enough to counter the negative JW crap she's was being submitted to. She thinks it's awesome Mommy is looking to start a career and going back to school.
My son is 2 so he has not experienced the indoctrination his sister has. Even when I was true blue one of his first sentences was "I do not like the kingdom hall." Now when he's getting ready for the meetings he runs to me giggling and whispers it in my ears. I tell him he has to go & to respect his dad but we'll play when he gets home.
Mine is not an easy fight but I am hopeful.