I would not let a practicing Witness within 1,000 miles of my children. No mothers, no fathers, no grandparents, no brothers, no sister, no aunts, no uncles, no Witnesses near my family especially the children. They are a living breathing smiling evil. GaryB
GaryB,
I am so sad that these heartless people have made you feel this way. But you know, JWs don't have the monopoly on using children to hurt their partners.
I would never, ever use my children as pawns in a battle of wills with my husband. I don't understand it when I hear about marriage break-ups where the woman gets custody, and she then prevents the father from seeing the childen, or even worse, starts to poision their minds. I'm not talking about cases where the father may have been violent (which is a very small amount of cases) - I mean where the marriage has broken up for whatever reason and, at least in this country, the woman usually gets custody of the children. I have heard of so many sad cases where not only is the father prevented from seeing the children, but also the grandparents on the father's side. All I can say is, women who do this (and it is usually women - no matter how hard some of you may find it to accept that, because father's still very very rarely get custody of the children) are shameful and disgusting. If my husband cheated on me with 1000 different women, I still would never prevent him seeing his children. What goes on between husband and wife is one thing, but there is NEVER any justification for dragging children into it (and again, I am not talking about cases where the man was violent). There is a group in this country called (I think) Children Need Fathers (or something like that) and it came about because of exactly the same sort of situation you have been through with your children. It isn't just JWs that do this, you know.
GaryB, please don't think all JWs are a living, breathing, smiling evil. Don't let these people twist your mind. To be honest, I think your wife would have been like this even if she hadn't been a JW. I mean, I don't think any differently now to the way I thought as a JW. I wouldn't have poisoned my children's mind against their father if he had stopped going to meetings before me. As it is, he is a staunch JW and I don't think he will ever change, but that is something I have to learn to live with. I think that the way you have been treated by your family is heartbreaking and it makes my blood boil, but please don't tar all JWs with the same brush. There are some really decent people in my congregation - misguided but decent, good people. They would never condone what has been done to you and they would feel exactly the way I feel about the sanctimonious hypocrites that have done this.
I hope you don't mind me butting in like this - it is well meant.
Terri