Help me find the right antedote to wake sleeping beauty

by shotgun 34 Replies latest social family

• 

  jgnat

  Bible Study! Great idea. A year or two ago, an article came out about the Beatitudes. An insert recommended that families do an in-depth study in their spare time. I found it the most reasonable WT article I ever read. So you could recommend this as a topic and be obedient to the Slave at the same time. Reading a whole book at once makes a lot more sense, and cuts through the WTspeak. I have heard that both Hebrews and Romans is good.

  Inductive reasoning sounds very interesting:
  http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/6135/inductive2.htm

  Here is a nice study guide to the Sermon on the Mount (Beatitudes).
  http://www.spu.edu/depts/ocm/studyGuides.asp

  I ask regularly, "Wait A Minute. Is that promise for the anointed or the other sheep? How can you tell? Wait a Minute. You can't claim that promise. You are not anointed. Too bad."
• 

  Scully

  Subtlety is the key when you have a devout spouse and you want to leave yourself. It's best if you do not do anything to provoke the elders into DFing you.

  Basically, what I'm suggesting is that you let her be. Non-interference, non-confrontational. If you do or say anything that could be construed as hindering her meeting attendance, field service, personal study, it won't be long before your wife talks to the elders about it, and they have been known on occasion to recommend that a believing spouse separate from the spouse who is inactive, citing "spiritual endangerment". If your marriage is important to you, then shift into neutral gears.

  Once things have smoothed over a little, launch Phase II: Work on your relationship with your spouse. Take her places on weekends (out for brunch, homeshows, shopping, movies) and just enjoy spending time together. Ask her to pick something she enjoys doing and do it together. It could be something incredibly torturous for you (like learning ballroom dancing ) but get her doing things with you, and meeting people outside the JWs.

  Phase III: Once you've got some social contacts established outside, start expanding on those so that it entails missing meetings occasionally. Then gradually increase the frequency with which you do these kinds of things together, so that she's having way more fun missing meetings than she is going to them.

  Phase IV: After she's missed several meetings, she's going to notice a distinct change in the way the congregation treats her. They don't phone to ask how she is. They don't talk to her as much as before. Some even give her the cold shoulder, like she's "bad association". Be supportive of her hurt feelings and reassure her that YOU know she's not bad.

  Phase V: She figures out all on her own that JWs do not display the kind of love that Jesus said would be evident among his disciples. She starts examining things on her own (without asking for your help, because she doesn't want to admit that you may have been right all along) and eventually, she's inactive and wants out, just like you do.

  Above all, be patient. It can take a long time to go through the process. Good luck.

  Love, Scully
• 

  Mulan

  What my husband did with me, for about 2-3 years was to say "listen to this" and then he would read me something really choice from one of Ray Franz' books. (something short but profound) It would make me very angry, but the information was in my head. He knew I wouldn't turn him in, and he was an elder too.

  After awhile, I had to put it all together. During the meetings, things that were said would remind me of things he had read to me. I realized they really did put all the attention on the Faithful and Discreet Slave. Eventually all the cards clicked into place.
• 

  expatbrit

  Hello Shotgun, and welcome to the board.

  I would recommend that you read Scully's post and think about it a considerable amount. My wife is JW. I faded out about 3 years ago, and basically the approach she has outlined is the one I have followed, with some success (right down to the ballroom dancing thing..Scully you are in big trouble for enjoying that!).

  Here are some of my thoughts on fading out from another thread: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/6/34518/1.ashx

  One thing I think you have to remember: you want the freedom and responsibility to make your own religious choices without being coerced or pressured. If you want that for yourself, you must be prepared to give your wife the same thing. If she doesn't want to hear or read things that are negative of the Watchtower, then at the end of the day that is her choice. If you have to force, it is the wrong time.

  Expatbrit
• 

  ESTEE

  Welcome to the board, shotgun....and tread c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y.....

  ESTEE
• 

  RAYZORBLADE

  First off: Welcome Shotgun!

  I read your post with great interest, and I also read with great interest: all the follow-up posts. All very useful, practical and obviously: TRIED AND TRUE.

  I wish you well Shotgun.

  I think the suggestions made are excellent ones, and obviously effective.

  Wishing you well, and hope things improve and that your wife does indeed, see through all the smoke and mirrors.

  Take care Shotgun.
• 

  shotgun

  It truly helps me to see so many have endured and made it through the trial by fire test.

  A devout witness would say Jah helped you and does not let us endure more than we can endure. If that were true it would mean when it gets to tough for us he lets us kill ourselves to stop the pain. What a kanundrum.

  Two years aago an elder who can actually be very kind and caring remarked jokingly how he's been to Brooklyn twice and each time there were large demonstartions going on in the pouring rain.( His remark I quess was these apostates were getting soaked by Jah)

  At the time I thought no-one wakes up in the morning and says I'll think its a good day to protest the JW's and devote my precious time and energy in trying to expose them for what they are.(Especially in the rain..we only make RV's in the rain).Most of the time people have good reasons for taking a hard line.

  My Nephew pointed me here and its the support I needed as at times I felt like getting a labotomy but with your help I think I'm in for the long Haul.

  Thanks so much
• 

  Magneto

  I honestly cannot believe how much your plight mirrors mine. I can truly identify, the only differences are me and my gilfriend are not even egnaged yet, and we ofcourse have no children together yet. I think the one thing you MUST adhere to, is the point that you are not trying to disrupt her belief in God and Christ, nor are you trying to put down her christianity. The enemy here is the WTS not christianity, and I wholly agree that the war must be fought with information. The WTS uses scare tactics and behavior modification. They subtley place cues in the minds of thier followers, barrage them with information and one of two things will happen, they either go silent and try to change the subject, or they return fire with a barrage of reactionary and spiteful statments. The elders are also the most potent threat here, just as they are with my girlfriend. They will stop at nothing to put a halt to your mission. I can only hope that we both can find the strength in the love we have for our special girls to overcome. There have been points where my empathy for the poor people who have been brainwashed by this group have turned to rage, and my pity has turn to hatred. I would love nothing more then to see the entire organization wiped away like dust off a book. Hopefully the opportuinity will present itself and a direct assault on thier credibility will arise. I eagerly seek that day, but until then I can only try to help my girlfriend, her mother, and thier friends if possible. I just want my girl to enjoy her life on her terms, and not thiers.
• 

  Special K

  Hi Shotgun,

  So happy you have this forum to get much needed support and help to get through all this crazyness while you are leaving J.W.s

  I am new to the forum and never new anything like this existed.Disfellowshipped 12 years ago.

  There is some great advice being sent to you through this forum. I sure it has helped you to know that you are not alone.

  The ballroom dancing was a good idea. Your wife, as many J.W. wives is used to you taking the lead.

  In ballroom dancing the woman, has to let the man lead in the dance by means of his subtle cues by touch. It might be a way to show her subconciously that you are still taking the lead, for she sounds so bewildered and now feels the loss of your lead in the J.W. organization.
• 

  Gamaliel

  shotgun,

  Actually I think all the ideas here are excellent.

  I liked the fact that a Bible study has been agreed upon. As the "head of house" you will still have rights to teach spiritually, even by JW rules. Often just doing the prescribed weekly Bible reading is enough, when free discussion is allowed. It was the Bible Study that got me to realize I was already out mentally and I only stayed on another couple years to try to do some good from the inside. It wasn't a Bible Study in the normal JW sense, because we never actually opened any other book besides the Bible. A very capable and respected brother at Bethel allowed a group of us come up to his room once or twice a week where we read books like Hebrews, Romans, Jeremiah, but we tried to understand the reading from the context rather than from WT references. His knowledge of WT commentary was immense, so he was kind enough to point out to us when our new understanding didn't accord with the WT. Although he was careful enough not to speak out directly against the WT position on a scripture, it was immediately obvious that the understanding we got ourselves from the context would always take priority over the WT understanding. After the first study, I knew I could never go back.

  As far as my wife coming out of the WT with me, my situation probably won't help much. We arranged that possibility before we were married. I told her what would probably happen, although I agreed with her that I wouldn't provoke the issue through any overt statements from the platform or even privately in the congregation. I already had known that my fiancee was a very spiritual person even though she was also a pioneer, so I knew it should be no problem to let her know why I felt we might have to leave the JWs. Fortunately, she understood in just a few minutes. She seemed sad about it, and I was afraid because I knew that a lot of her very good friends were also in the Writing Department, even the brother who studied with her before her baptism. But this brother who studied with her and was a respected father figure to her was from the conservative side of the Writing Dept, and my friends in Writing were from a more liberal side. (We picked one of each to handle our wedding.) But when she asked why I thought we would need to be prepared to leave the JWs, I told her it was such a serious issue that I would need her to really mean it when she asked this question -- and therefore she had to let me explain and really listen. Turned out that all my issues had already been her issues and she suspected from things I said before we dated that we would leave the JWs whenever we were both ready.

  I think you are fortunate that your wife still asks why you have doubts, why you are letting Satan take over, etc. Each time she asks anything, it's an opportunity, and you'll probably need a lot of those, because it's very difficult to pour out too much at once. As you are learning things worth sharing, share them in many small doses. The defensive walls won't be as high when you do it this way... and a few sound-bites are bound to stick.

  I wish you both the best, and your daughters too. BTW, Welcome!!!

  Gamaliel