So some may have read the long and boring post about our last vacation and some of the things that my wife came to tell me during our time away. I am adding the link here but I can summarize it for time's sake.
https://www.jehovahs-witness.com/topic/5768475763015680/vacation-time-reality-closing-up-on-my-wife
In a nutshell, right before we left, we found out of a JW couple we know well. He was DFd for fornication. We did not have all the details but once I bumped into him and we started talking. He told me he was DFd and I told him I did not care. He shared some details of the ordeal but we did not have much time. He also told me he had several doubts about the borg. Comes along out trip, having been away from meetings for close to a month, wife told me a few things that made me feel like she finally realized that the real love was at home and not at the KH. That regardless of our difference of views, the religion should not be a dividing factor among us, provided that there is plenty of proof that this org lies and cheats. Although this was just a feeling of mine, she did not say those words exactly.
After returning home, things seemed to quickly start moving back to the normal self. Meetings right away for her. Feelings of disappointment for me. Should have kept my expectations low I thought. However, I decided to give the brother mentioned above a call and ask him how he was doing (since I am the only JW he can speak with). We conversed on the phone for about 2 hours. I was in the car at home when we were getting ready to hang up. My wife got home and saw me there. When I went in she was naturally curious to know what I was doing.
I told her who I was speaking with and the inquiring began. In a nutshell, I told her how this guy, who has been married for 25 years, ended up sleeping with another woman and the reasons he gives for this sin (mostly marital issues but he also admitted to having some differences of belief). Here I begin to notice a change in her, I realized this event was having an effect on her and most likely she was beginning to trace a parallel between their situation and ours.
I had agreed to meet with this brother at his home, so I took a chance on a meeting day (while wife was at the meeting) and we spent about 4 hours talking about his issues. I came to find out a lot of other things about elders in the local hall (more than one congo) and how they were covering for each other. How some elders that were scolded for inappropriate advances to other women were left as elders and were delivering talks at conventions. And that is by far not the worst thing I heard. A lot of what I learned could be verified by other things I've seen myself so I am pretty confident he is telling the truth. This brother also has an "apostate attitude" on him already, although he still believes this is the right place to be, his faith is far from optimal and we both agreed that if anyone ever found out what he thought, he would be DFd again if he wasn't already. I shared some of the most shocking things about TTATT. He was not aware of the child abuse issues and even sort of began to justify their actions as "human errors", until he saw some of the documentation available online.
When I got back home, I referred all of the stories to my wife, she began to cry. She finally broke out and told me that she has been thinking a lot lately about what is happening to this couple and how we could end up the same. The most comforting words from her were when she said that despite our past arguments, it would not be fair for us to let this issue get in between us. Unfair as in the religion wins and we get nothing in return. Unfair as in the GB still gets what it wants while we brake up. There is no love or fairness, as she could verify and that regardless how much she likes some of the normal teachings, to even hold the idea that we'd be better off apart from each other is unthinkable.
This made me feel so much better and renewed the hope that one day this may get fixed for good. At no point did she say she was going to quit attending meetings or anything, but the fact that she realizes that the religion is not worth as much as she used to think, is a step in the right direction.
Later that week we decided to go on a date. This is something we used to do a lot before but started faltering as we started arguing more. The date was going great and was fairly normal. I decided to ask her if she wanted to go for a walk but I had no intentions of talking about anything in particular. As we sat down in a park, she was awfully quiet. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that she can not stop thinking about this couple. The discussion started shifting slowly to us and our religious differences. However, this time things were as peaceful as if we had come to an understanding that this is wrong and we were both in the same page for a while. Once again, we are not talking about quitting but rather the effects that this has in our relationship and our children. All of a sudden she claims to have always agreed with me regarding the wrong about the borg but at the same time can not bare the idea of her family cutting ties with her. I told her I did not want that either but that if at least we had an understanding then we could work out the kinks together without disrupting family ties.
I believe she still has a lot of reconciliation to do with her belief. She is still probably under the impression that regardless of the legal and moral issues facing the borg, that they still have something useful for us. I told her already that despite how much she's heard from me, that we have not even began to review spiritual issues. She still claim some good is there and I agree but I told her that whatever good is there is only meant to support the bad, not to help anyone.
So hopefully this is a turning point that will allow her to see things for what they are thru the eyes of reasoning and not emotional attachment. It really seems to me that the emotional attachment to our family is winning over the attachment to the group.
Wish me luck.