by TotallyADD 74 Replies latest jw friends
Daughter in laws can be bitches from hell or angels from heaven ,we have experienced both in our life , hopefully your son is mature enough to realise under the influence of the cult you did what you thought was best for him at the time ,and now realising TTATT you have apologised for your former behaviour and have unconditional love for him .Hopefully after having his vent he will cool down and see reason and you both can mend your relationship together .
smiddy
ADD, I really feel for you, I cannot imagine how hurt you must be. I started a thread about being born in blurring the lines between JW issues and parental issues. This seems like that to me.
My take on your sons letter is that he is confused in his emotions. It may be that for a long time he has resented how hard you were on him but he could justify your being that way because of being a witness. Your apology to him while camping would also have been taken in the context of being a witness and would have built on that existing justification.
Now that you no longer identify as a witness, that justification is no longer there. Even worse for him, the reason for being hard on him you have rejected as wrong. In his mind he might think "Great, why NOW dad! Why not when we were kids - we could have had a normal childhood! All the restrictions and anguish! Why didnt you LOOK back then!"
To complicate matters, his wife is on his case. These conflicting emotions need to be vented somewhere and that somewhere is you. You copped it big time.
But isn't that what parents are for? Your response was really nice. Really nice. As parents we say that we would do anything for our kids, take a bullet for them if we had too. This is your bullet. Take it as a proud and loving parent of a son who is angry and confused. Taking it personally can only cloud the issue but looking at it as an opportunity to protect your kid might help you see passed the personal hurt and in the future he might see it as going some way to fixing the past.
Cheers,
Ob
marking
As parents we try to do our best. Even when we are "good" parents we make mistakes and we can also sometimes repeat mistakes our parents made to us. Apologising is a powerful thing, your son is still angry and needs time to work through this before he can make peace with himself and you. This cult has far reaching effects even when we no longer believe.
At my Uncles funeral my dad asked what is the most important thing we have? Is it wealth or happy families or respect or power? No it is none of these things. It is life itself for without life we cannot accomplish anything or be anything. Life is hope and gives us a chance to make things better. You still have time and so does your son it is early days.
I was upset with my dad from age 12 to about age 25--I felt my dad was too hard on me--- my dad was a farmer and organized team sports in town and at school was a waste of his time- he needed me to do chores after school and work on the farm in the summer. Consequently, I developed no interest in any sports- none. People think this is strange when I tell them I don't know who is playing in the superbowl or the world series. I really wanted to be in the Boy Scouts, but that too, was inconvenient to his schedule. -looking back, my dad did the best he could- he worked 20 hrs a day during peak planting and harvest times- my mom worked herself to an early grave with all the work a farm wife had to do. One day, after I became a father, I realized most kids never get to work shoulder to shoulder with their father, brother and uncle- you haven't seen man's work until you have baled hay. I'm not upset anymore and I never blamed my parents for my fate- being born on a farm- I had a taste of outside farm life and knew real freedom from the boss man in corporate america. I consider myself lucky to know the difference between the honest bread I earned with the sweat of my brow and the "government free stuff" that folks think they deserve just because they are breathing.
Totally ADD - It is a sad story - but at this point you have done all you can to make amends. The mental, emotional and physical abuse that JW parents have reaped on their kids is no reflection of Christianity for sure - and all from sincere delusion. I know it is hard to do, but you have to let go and let him work through his anger. Anger is a byproduct of clinical depression, and your words of love - while he may not initially sense their meaning - will be in the back of his mind.
Please don't dwell on a mixed up man's angry outburst....he will cool down in time. Hang in there!
It may take 10 years for your son to come around- open the door when he knocks.
Nugget you are right. As parents we do the best we can with what we have to work with. My parents thought because they stayed together all their life they did better than their parents. They were both throw away children. Even though they was still abusive and never around and could care less about their kids future except for the future of the WT. But in their mind they did better than their parents. When my wife and I had kids we made sure we was their for them took them of camping trips and my wife encourage a good education for them. In many ways we did better than our parents with what we had to work with. Was we perfect? No way. Many mistakes and regrets. But they never missed a meal, had clean clothes, warm beds, and roof over their head and many, many other things. Good or bad most parents can say that. Our only hope is our kids can improve on that. As far as our oldest son goes my wife and I finally got to talk to each other last night when she got home from work. We looked at the context of his letter and we can see his wife was behind alot of it. The reason we say that is the way he would say certain things which was not normal speech from him but is from his wife. So we think this is a way to get us out of our son life and never be around them again. Our sin is we was never a part of her side of the family. My wife said our son is still in a cult. The cult of his wife. You can do this but you can't do that. As long as I say it is alright you can do it. This is how you show love. The WT has prime both of them to think this way. Totally ADD
As one parent to another our adult children strike out at us when they are hurting because we are always there for them and deep down they know it. Its unconditional love. I believe of all people they can vent feeling to it is the parents they always fall back on good and bad. Time heals.
Lovely response ADD. Many of us made mistakes as parents tangled up in the WTBS. There is only love that can repair damage. It need to be two way but you're taking the right steps, I hope your son's heart is softened by your response.
Loz x
