convention this weekend

zeb

My wife has just left for the convention. I dread it. She will come home tired and cranky as always.

Arrange not to be home when she gets there. Leave a note saying that it has been your experience that these assemblies, instead of being uplifting, leave her tired and cranky and you don't wish to be at the receiving end of it anymore. Check into a hotel or go on a fishing or camping trip.

GrreatTeacher

Sorry about that, zeb. That super zealous stuff is hard to stomach.

joe134cd

I don't blame her I think I would also come home tired and cranky.

zeb

Yep t&c. I asked if she wished to go out for dinner. The answer was classic jw. Avoidance, then obtuse and cranky.

I like the idea of the note and going fishing/camping. Hmmm

fastJehu

@ zeb

Maybe you can prepare a nice candle-light-dinner for her.

The whole convention she only had dry bread or soggy salad with water.

Your dinner and the wine would remind her, how nice it would be - to stay at home and maybe watch the convention on the PC or TV. After all the convention talks about "showing love like jesus" it would be great to show her the "real love".

Just my 2 cents.

donny

I remember those days well and I am so glad they are behind me, Over the last several years one of persons I worked with was married to a woman who became a JW several years after they were married. He asked me "what do they do there all that time?"

I told him that you sit there and listen to very boring speeches by very boring people. I also told him that most people do not recall much after they return from such conventions. I told him "At the first dinner when she gets back, ask her what did they talk about at the convention?"

She could not recall anything other than stuff like "Read your Bible, Don't miss meetings, Love Jehovah, etc.

He replied "That is what you tell me they tell you at the Kingdom Hall. Was there anything new revealed or anything that required this 3 day convention?

The more he pressed more information from the convention, the more frustrated she got.

She finally blurted "I went there just to go there, no one expects you to remember much. Its about seeing people you haven't seen in a while."

Sail Away

FastJehu

Maybe you can prepare a nice candle-light-dinner for her.

The whole convention she only had dry bread or soggy salad with water.

Your dinner and the wine would remind her, how nice it would be - to stay at home and maybe watch the convention on the PC or TV. After all the convention talks about "showing love like jesus" it would be great to show her the "real love".

^This^

Zeb, I absolutely agree with what FastJehu said. I was in your wife's shoes for over thirty years. If you love your wife, you will try to be empathetic. She is being verbally abused for the entire weekend-- told she is a worthless speck of dust, what she says and does is never good enough and she needs to do more. They even tell us when to stand up and when to sit down for crying out loud!

One of my husbands major complaints was that I came home from assemblies and conventions cranky and exhausted. Who wouldn't be after driving for over two hours each way, trying to quiet crying children for an entire weekend, staying at a crappy hotel an hour or more away from the convention site, sitting in traffic, etc.?

My husband wanted me to have dinner before I came home. The last thing I wanted to do was go out to a loud restaurant and wait for food. I just wanted to go home. As a JW submissive wife (read indoctrinated), I didn't know how to ask for what I wanted. My job was to put up and shut up.

Now when I come home after traveling and Mr. SailAway is home, I ask him to make me a plate with fruit, cheese and crackers with a glass of wine. I'm happy, and he is happy. If you can't be home when Mrs. Zeb gets home, because it's just too hard and you would rather go fishing, please leave her a nice plate with her drink of choice and a little love note. It will go a long way. Trust me.

bradford

Agreed with above..something special when she gets home.

I remember when I would come home from the district convention and tell myself it was the "shot in the arm" I needed at the right time, when really I just wanted to take a couple shots when I got home each day.

Julia Orwell

Yup. I lived with my non-jw parents when I was a Jw and they often observed that I came home cranky and took a month to recover from those bloody things.