Thank you all, I wanted to wait a day or so to see how everyone responded. The suggestion of counselling is a good one, I will keep you posted.
All the best for 2012!!
Need some sage JWN advice
by Simon Morley 15 Replies latest jw friends
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sabastious
Hi Simon, I'm sorry to hear what is happening to you. Your wife has an Acceptance issue which appears will require counciling of some sort. I would recommend going together. Make sure to try not to invalidate her feelings as they are very real. Godspeed!
-Sab
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Simon Morley
Thanks Sab, that is truly sage advice in your post.
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jonathan dough
Something else might be going on. Don't think it's all JW related.
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nugget
I agree with the advice to get counselling. Your wife is struggling to come to terms with the time lost to the organisation and is projecting some of her guilt and rage onto you. After all she had choices too and left you to make them. She may feel some guilt over your daughter's bad first marriage as a mother you do want more than anything for your children to be happy.
Councelling will help you both get some perspective so you can enjoy your freedom rather than living in regret.
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LoneWolf
The question in my mind is how active she was as a JW. Did she endure your trying to force her to be a JW, or was she actively enthusiastic about being one?
If it is the second, then there is a good possibility that the true reason for her anger is her own complicity, but that she can't face it squarely yet and is thrusting it off on you. Guilt is a horrible thing to live with.
The cure is easy to realize, but hard to reach. We are all imperfect humans, limited in our knowledge and strength. If you did the best you knew how, and I would imagine she did too, then how can anyone demand more? No one is perfect, and we all make mistakes that we regret for the rest of our lives. Neither of you are exceptions to this rule. Forgiving ourselves is a difficult thing to do, and she may easily be setting herself up for a second dose of heartache by this unjust reaction.
The situation is not all that much different than that of a pedophile and his victim. Do we blame the child for being innocent, or do we blame the one responsible for the crime? It's important for her to keep the anger focused on the truly guilty party and not shift it somewhere else because she is afraid of the perpetrator.
The important thing here is not that you were in a shipwreck, but that you all survived and are in good health. Be thankful for that, and do what you can to help her to do the same.
Plus -- there is a strange thing about things like these. Edison said that the most valuable things he ever made were his mistakes, because those were the things he learned from. You paid 20 years of tuition in the school of hard knocks. Don't let that education go to waste.
Tom