by goingthruthemotions 55 Replies latest jw experiences
I have come to accept my situation more of a social group than a faith/religion.
Being a born-in and very accepting of it all 'til the 1995 overlapping generation debacle, my social skills have been defined and set in stone; I can only deal well in JW settings, all others make me quite nervous and uncomfortable when the 'anything goes' worldly attitude comes out.
DY
I am fully awake.. wife is somewhat awake but insists on going to meetings and keeping up with the rituals. She still does not fully grasps the bad about the org. She feels that she can be there and not be harmed, basically denying 1 Cor 15:33. She feels that attending does not mean supporting the harmful policies and that most of the bad things are single bad actors or people seeking revenge on the org. She sometimes reads JW survey but can only focus on the angry comments by readers rather than the facts presented.
Is harder to wake up fence seaters
I'm fully out but my wife is 100% dub. But, she's sick and misses a lot of meetings. We've come to an unspoken agreement on many things over the last few years. The kids and I go to memorial but that is the only witness we do. In return my wife has some involvement in most holidays with us as long as no one at the KH finds out.
At first it was really tough and uncomfortable as she would get ready for the meetings and make the kids go too. But, it got easier as time went by and I spent a lot of time with the kids and developed a great relationship with them that was not built on the JW religion. In the end all my kids told my wife that they weren't interested in being witnesses.
It floors me whenever a wife is awake but the husband is still mentally in. It stands to reason that in any marriage, one is more likely to question things and pursue answers. With most of the couples I know in the organization, the man is more likely to raise big questions and less likely to 'wait on Jehovah'. This is just my own experience. Also, these are usually appointed men who have seen more, given more, and in some cases been screwed over more. Just the other day I heard a very responsible brother go on a bit of a rant about recent changes in the organization and then suddenly stop himself with the phrase "of course we don't question Jehovah's organization." Too late.
Part of the reason for this variation I think is that most JW's, whether conscious of it or not, have a threshold in their mind above which all the decisions are made by Jehovah and below which all the decisions are made by men. For some it's at the congregation level (elders), for some it's at the circuit level (CO) and others take everything with a grain of salt if it didn't come directly from the branch. Still others can be mentally in and yet recognize the factions and power struggles between departments within headquarters, but they still hold the GB as untouchably holy. Fine. Wherever the line is, you can work with it.
So for me the only way to make progress with those who are still asleep (but stirring) is to push the line back of what's perceived to be done by "men" and what is done by Jehovah. If you can push it all the way above the heads of the Governing Body you get them to see that Jehovah has left the building and before they know it, they're awake. I say all this because this is how it happened for me as I read more and more, and compared it with what I saw. You lose faith at one level, then the next, then it all comes down.
If you can get a spouse to question the elders, or even a CO, that's progress. Get them to question the branch and you're really getting somewhere. ("Where is all the money going?" is a really good one right now). Question the GB, nearly free. Question Jehovah, definitely over.
My wife was able to move from the frighten stage, where she felt our differences could be the end, to a more "I know there is a lot of BS in this but I do not like any other religion" type. It has been the hardest two years of my life. I am still struggling with the idea that she recognizes (and she tells me so) the lies but deliberately goes back for more every week. In my bad moments I have gone as far as to tell her that I see her relationship with the church to be as hurtful as if she was with another man and being open and honest about it. Sometimes I tell her about certain BS I've heard in the news, I add comments on the consequences and the harm being made to others or sometimes even me... she laughs, shrugs it off and moves one. Hurst me even more.
I know she will come around. It's hard for her, she has a lot of emotional baggage and so far she feels the cult carries it for her. I think the braking point will come once the elders find out about me.
