Family Dinner

by fade_away 12 Replies latest jw experiences

  • fade_away
    fade_away

    So my wife and I decided to throw a little dinner for her parents and mine. They are all hardcore JWs and my wife and I have been out for a little more than a year. Her father has been innactive for years, but as soon as we decided to leave, her father decided to go full throttle JW. So it's been a very nice evening meal with them...but as they eat at the table, my wife and I are eating standing and I can't help but over-hear their conversation. They keep talking about Satan laying traps to make JWs "stumble". They talk about how the world has nothing to offer. My dad has experiences to tell about the period in his life when he left the "truth". He talks about how this world had nothing to offer him and how he felt an empty hollow space in his heart while he was gone. My wife and I are no part of their conversation....but they seem to have the same convo every time they come over. They also like to boast about how the congregation is growing. I'm not sure if these conversations are being done in front of us on purpose or if I'm just being paranoid.

    My father in law has done his research on the WT history....He has uncovered the truth about the truth...but he is still in and is getting more and more indoctrinated. My parents and his wife keep brainwashing him everyday. He was a JW who started to fade and now he is slowly being brought back and we can't help him. Well, we will continue to have a good relationship with them. It'll be a bit awkward since they mostly talk about Jehovah this and Jehovah that and how close we are to the end...but I guess we can find a way to keep our relationship strong. That is unless they find out what we think of the organization. I wrote an email to a friend about my discoveries of the WT history. That may bite me in the butt one day very soon.

  • cptkirk
    cptkirk

    yea...sounds totally reasonable to me. you should hand them the cult recovery handbook when they do it next time. whatever the hell it's called, combatting mind control, combatting cult mind control? yeah hand them that...or no...do what they do, start talking to your wife about various excerpts from the cult control book in front of them.

  • mrsjones5
    mrsjones5

    "I'm not sure if these conversations are being done in front of us on purpose or if I'm just being paranoid."

    You're not paranoid, they're doing it on purpose. My parents have done the same to me.

  • Quandry
    Quandry

    Of course they are doing it to "help" you, without directly speaking to you. Why have both sets over at once? At least with one at a time, you can both sit.

  • Shawn10538
    Shawn10538

    Why were you standing? Did they make you stand? Were you allowed to participate in the conversation?

  • Shawn10538
  • Shawn10538
    Shawn10538

    It's funny. I'm reading this and trying to think if I have a single person in my life, who if they were having a conversation for my benefit, I wouldn't say, "Are you having this conversation for my benefit? You wanna just come out and say what you have to say?" And we would have the conversation like two adults, no matter what the problem is. And the problem could be anything and I wouldn't care if they were my friend. It could be, "I am gay." "I worship Satan." "I sell Pre paid Legal." "I have a stye in my eye." "I no longer believe in the Jehovah's Witnesses." And that would be it. And I am pretty sure I don't have a single friend who would have a conversation for my benefit unless they say, "Hey Shawn, this is a conversation for your benefit. And this is what we want to tell you, straight and without watering it down."

    My friends ream me sometimes, and sometimes I ream them. But we're honest with one another. I have friends who were hardcore Christians and have become atheists. I have friends who were atheist and now are christians or buddhists. I have friends who were straight but are now gay. And vice versa. Noner of those things even matter to me, or them. I myself have flip flopped on religion and god a few times. Nobody cares. We are frinds based on something intangible. I can't even say what it is. But their religion never comes into it. We may argue. I may tell them they are stupid for believing something I don't. but they tell me the same sometimes and sometimes I need to hear it.

    But have dinner with someone and be lying to their faces, let alone if it were my parents? I just couldn't do that. And I didn't when I realized that I didn't believe in it. And of course they eventually shunned me. But as time goes by I realize what superior people I have discovered when I chose truth over parents. God has truly blessed me with beautiful, smart, friendly, loyal friends and those that left me can go to hell as far as I'm concerned. I miss them. But they are deluded, proud, arrogant, unloving, unfirgiving, self-righteous, Pharisaical cult members. And I am so happy to have friends I don't have to lie to just to keep their friendship. I believe Jesus was right when he said if you lose parents and brothers for my sake you receive others, to paraphrase it rbutally.

    Anyway. It's nice to actually live as just one person. I don't have to put on a phony face for anybody. No double life to keep track of. It's the only way I could ever live.

  • Vidqun
    Vidqun

    Your father-in-law sounds like a sheep that cannot be away from the flock. He is dependant on the association. Some people are like that. They need to feel liked, that they belong, a person with a typical herd mentality.

  • PaintedToeNail
    PaintedToeNail

    I'd like to know why you were standing too. Do you normally stand while eating? Why didn't you join them at the table? It would make me uncomfortable to have people standing while I was sitting down to my food.

  • nugget
    nugget

    I think he doth protest how happy he is in the congregation too much. If they have been out and have come back knowing the truth about the truth then their conversation is as much to convince themselves as it is to convince you. Jws have to say they are happy, say they have the truth, say they are a brotherhood because they are none of those things. Also when they are with other jws they have to show contrition for their past wrongdoings and reinforce that they are now good sheep.

    Perhaps it would be good to steer the conversation a little more talking about what they imagined their life was going to be like if they hadn't been a witness. There are so many great things in life that have nothing to do with the organisation.

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