Non JW wife/JW husband Christmas tree debate (page 5)

never a jw

From your last post, it seems that there is hope, but he has to come to ackowledge that he is in a harmful cult. That may turn out to be a long process, judging from the countless experiences I have read in the last four years. Learning those experiences may be your first step before taking any action. Learn from others who had to wake up their spouses. You will find many of those experiences here. Learning about the Australian Royal Commission hearings and documents about JW's is another important step. JWfacts.com is good too. Crisis of Conscience is another great help, etc, etc,etc,etc......

Zana

Hi spacegirl,

I am not a JW but my wife is, rather liberal though, probably considered spiritually weak by many in her cong. We have two small children. For me marriage is about loving each other and accepting who we are. This involves compromises in our life together because there are always differences, not only the religious ones. We have different hobbies, different priorities on vacations etc. But we have made the decision to build a life together for us and our children, so we have to make it work. And it does work! Mainly because we always come back to "We love each other" and "family well-being is our top priority". And starting from there we find compromises. But first we need to know how important certain things are in each others lives.

Examples: I like birthdays very much and I want them for my children to celebrate freely. So we do celebrate them, just not with a big party or inviting lots of people. I like Christmas, too. But for me as an agnostic it is mainly a good occasion for quality family time. So there is good food, gifts, a lot of talking and playing together but no tree in our house. It's not that high on my priority list but it's high on hers to not have one. So I give her that, and on the other hand she gives me other things. We usually visit my parents or my sister during Christmas für a few days so we do get to see a tree after all.

So is your husband willing to compromise, too? Does he recognize how important the tree is for you and act accordingly? Try to figure out what exactly he doesn't like about it. Is he afraid that others JWs find out? I wouldn't force the tree, but I admit compromise is difficult here. Maybe put up a tree only every two years? Or always go on vacation during christmas and put up a tree in your vacation house/cabin so it doesn't have to stand in his house?

vivalavida

Hi Spacegirl,

Welcome to the forum!

I have read the whole thread with lots of interest. I believe all the ideas and tips from the others here are on spot. I definitely hope that it all works out for you and your JW husband. I am of the opinion that if you manage to work out all the quirks and problems caused by one of you being a JW and you love each other, you should stay together.

I just wanted to share an interesting link with you about an article I recently read. I think the more you know and the more arguments you have, the better. Not that he will accept them, but information never hurts in my opinion.

Here is the article: "The Myth of the Pagan Origin of Christmas".

Having said that, I do agree with the others that it has much more weight to use their own literature, as in the already mentioned article from the 1960 Watchtower which, by the way, you can read in its totality online HERE, just go to page 736.

The other article from the Awake of July 2009: "Is it wrong to change your religion" can also be read online, just go to page 220 on that PDF.

I definitely believe those two articles are your best bet.

Just my two cents.

Vivalavida

vivalavida

Testing the links, they seem not to work directly. If they don't, go to this link:

http://jw-wayback.org/static1/bibliotheque

and navigate from there to "English" then "Magazines" and from there pick "Awake" or "The Watchtower" and go from there. The pages on the respective PDFs are on my previous post.

I hope it helps.

Vivalavida

spacegirl443

Giordano, thank you for your kind words. Everyone, thank you for your comments and insight.

Vivalavida, thank you so much for those links! To see it in print is really good and I will be printing these out to show him.

vivalavida

Spacegirl,

You are welcome, glad I could be of help.

dogisgod

Love you space girl. You are welcome here.

Pete Zahut

JW's insist/demand that their religious rights are upheld in the workplace and in public. When these matters go to court, they are treated fairly and their rights are usually upheld, even though JW's themselves have high disdain for the authorities of this world.

Ironically, in their personal lives when dealing with non JW's , they expect others, even spouses and other family members, to alter their religious beliefs and their lives around their JW beliefs. For instance, non JW relatives would expected to attend the Kingdom Hall weddings and funerals of their JW family members (most have no problem doing so) yet the JW family members would never set foot in a Church under any circumstance, even for a wedding or funeral of a close relative.

All I can say is when it comes to religion and just about everything else, get used to being the odd man out, in your own home. Your husbands family may seem as if they have accepted you but you will always be looked upon as a unenlightened unbeliever who is part of Satan's wicked system of things AKA "Babylon the Great". They believe anyone who is part of "Babylon the Great" will soon be destroyed by God and that means you. If they are making an effort to cover up their attitude and are being decent to you, it is because they view you as a possible convert and are hoping to win you over with their good example.

spacegirl443

I'm back...

So my husband and I talked the other night and I have to say it went well. He wanted me to understand why his religion does not celebrate icons, symbols, etc. He showed me some passages from the Bible and explained that he's trying to live his life in the "truth".

He made some good points, but said he understood why I would be so sad without my holiday traditions. He knows its how I was raised, and that it's important to me.

Long story short, we compromised on putting the tree up in my office/extra bedroom in the apartment. Its not ideally where I wanted it, but he said that as long as it wasn't in his face, it was ok. I'll take it! I was very happy that we reached an agreement :) I think it speaks to how much we love and respect each other. And btw, I didn't even need to break out any of the information I printed out, which made me happy.

I put on the Christmas tunes and decorated my tree yesterday. Thank you all for the input and information you shared! It helped me more than you could ever know.

stan livedeath

my wife is a filipina...catholic. she was really keen to get a tree. i dont think ive ever had one--my mum became a dub when i was 9 years old--i left at 23 but never bothered with a tree . so--its a first for me.

Non JW wife/JW husband Christmas tree debate

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