Does Your JW Family Do This?????????

by Wild_Thing 12 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Wild_Thing

  Okay ... here's what happened ...

  First, some background ... I am the youngest of three daughters raised in the org (we are third generation), and I left for good more than four years ago (I left in my heart a long time before that). They tried to shun me for a while, but couldn't keep it up any longer than 6 months, and after that we slowly got close again. My mother and sisters are all still witnesses. Anyway, my oldest sister has been going through this God awful custody battle, and I allowed her and her daughter to live in my home for a year. (It didn't go well ... I ended up having to ask her to leave (as nicely as I could) .. and a lot more I won't go into.)

  Anyway, during the time she lived with me, she started smoking cigarettes. I knew she was doing it, and I knew she was hiding it. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to cause a stink and I really considered it none of my business. Besides that, we come from the ultimate in dysfunctional families and we don't TALK about anything! (I think my family invented the whole big elephant in the living room thing!) I was a little worried about her getting in trouble, but she was baptized when she was 12, and is not even a publisher now (hasn't been one for 10+ years). She is so much of a quasi-witness, she barely registers as a bleep on the radar!

  One evening, a month before she moved out, her daughter dug into her purse without permission and found the cigarettes (no one in my famlily has boundaries, hence no one saw the problem of her digging in her purse without permission ... go figure!) This all happened at a restaurant in front of me and the rest of my JW family. Her daughter was very visably upset and asked to ride back to the house with her other aunt (my other sister). At this point no one knew why she was upset, but she told my other sister and her elder-husband about the cigarettes on the ride back to my house. They had been suspecting anyway because of the smell, and my neice, who is 16 put 2 + 2 together and told them about all the "errands" she had been leaving the house to go do.

  When they arrived, my cigarette-smoking sister went inside for "something" (don't know what ... maybe to get rid of the evidence?) I was outside with my other sister as she told me about what my neice had found and she asked me if I knew that our sister had been smoking cigarettes. I started crying and told her truth, and starting going off on how ridiculous it is for them to condemn her like I knew they were going to do, etc. and I knew it would happen sometime to one of us, and it was just a matter of time before they did it to my neice (who is a teenager). I pretty much lost it! She assured me that no matter what, they would not shun her. (She tried to tell me that things are not like they use to be in the organization when we were kids ... whatever!)

  After all this happened and I had gone my own way for the evening, they confronted her about smoking and she adamantly denied the whole thing. My teenage neice said she knew what she saw and could even tell them the brand. My sister continued to call her own daughter a liar and she called me a liar. This was told to me later by my other sister, and honestly, I did not know what to say. I told her that I have never actually seen her smoke one, so they can't do anything about it anyway. (I really didn't intend to rat her out, I just knew ... or thought I knew ... that it had gone so far, she couldn't hide it anymore.) She continued to deny it, no matter what .. even to me privately ... and I had been defending her!

  Now ... I am torn. I understand her desire for self-preservation, and I hate to think of the ultimate price of being df'd, but I am absoultely furious that she called myself and her own daughter a liar! How do I resolve this within myself?? I have been discussing this with her via email about how it bothered me and she has zero remorse (or so it seems) that she saved her ass at the cost of my neice and myself. It has been dropped within the family, and our other sister and her husband did not make it an elder matter (bless their hearts), but I am still left with this wedge between my sister and myself over this whole thing. I tried explaining to her that yes, I understand her fears, but because of her lying about it, it left my family not knowing who to believe, and it left me not knowing if I can trust what she says about about anything (because she still denies it even to me).

  Have you ever heard of such a mess?? I am so mad at her for lying. She is lying to herself too, and insisting on staying in a religion that she is so obviously unhappy with! I told her that if they were going to cut anyone off, it would have been me a long time ago! I have blatently rebeled against the religion and done A LOT of no-nos. They let me leave quietly and so far, have not come after, and I have a great relationship with my family (except for my lying b**** of a sister!)

  So ... how do I let this go?
• 

  ballistic

  Wild Thing, I don't know how old you are, but you are in deep with this situation. It all seems very simple to me.

  You are too involved and can't see the woods for the trees.

  Take a step back and take control of the situation.

  There is no such thing as a "mess", that is only how you interpret it.
• 

  Wild_Thing

  I am 27 ... single, well educated, have a career, own my house ... and I want to move to Mexico! (I know my life should be better than this!)
• 

  avishai

  None 'o your bizness to say anything in the first place. You7 should be neutral like switzerland. Her daughter needs to stay out of it as well. It' s especially none of your parents or others biz
• 

  Wild_Thing

  None 'o your bizness to say anything in the first place.

  I didn't say anything in the first place ... it was my neice who found the cigarettes and accused her of smoking. Should I have lied for her? I actually thought about lying for her, but then I would be calling my neice a liar, too. Besides that, the circumstances surrounding it all surfacing really caught me off guard!

  And I am trying to be like Switzerland and have not said word one to anyone else about it except her .. honestly, I hope they don't pursue it, but at the same time, I can't stand being called a liar, and my sister just cannot see how/ why it is wrong!

  Am I wrong?
• 

  jwbot

  Wild_Thing, I do not think you are wrong, but I think if asked about it just say "I do not want to talk about it".
• 

  Scully

  Put the situation in perspective.

  First of all, on a scale of "sinfulness" of 1 - 100 (1 = least sinful, 100 = most despicable, sinful thing imaginable), rate the following behaviours from your point of view:

  a) smoking
  b) smoking "on the sly" (hiding, sneaking out to "run errands", lying about it)
  c) having sex with someone you are in a committed relationship with, but are not married to
  d) having sex with someone you just met and will probably never see again
  e) being raped (you are the victim) and are too terrified to scream when you are attacked
  f) committing rape
  g) committing child molestation
  h) committing child molestation, lying about it when accused, and getting away with it because there aren't 2 eyewitnesses
  i) telling a "little white lie" (ie, faking an orgasm so as not to hurt your partner's feelings, or telling them their ass doesn't look big in those pants)
  j) training to fly and hijack a Boeing aircraft so that you can become one of the most notorious suicide bombers in the history of mankind
  k) misleading and inducing guilt and shame in 6 million + followers, accepting money from them given in good faith, and delivering false prophecy for over a century
  l) an elder who beats the crap out of his wife and/or kids

  In the Grand Scheme Of Things, when compared to all the possibilities of horrors a person can commit, smoking - an addiction - is an absolutely pathetic reason to condemn someone.

  The WTS's aggressiveness in sussing out and DFing people for smoking, when it seems they don't give a rat's @$$ about child molesters and rapists and wife beating elders in their Good Ole Boys Club, shows me that their priorities are effed up in a huge way.

  Don't get me wrong - I know exactly the turmoil this situation is creating because I have lived through the scenario you've described with one of my loved ones, when we were all still JWs. The aim of the gestapo shake-down is to shame your sister and terrorize her into acceptable behaviour again. She's reacting the way she is, because she knows the consequences will be swift and penetrating. It has nothing to do with you, she is in self-preservation mode, and that is exactly what all the sneaking around is about. If you don't see her, if her daughter doesn't see her, if she does this privately, all she's doing is carrying around cigarettes in her purse. For all anyone knows, she gives them out to homeless people at the park. And because nobody has seen her smoking, there are no eyewitnesses.

  In the real world, this is a tempest in a teapot. In the JW world, this is what they live for: taking down anyone they perceive as weak, the way vultures hover around a wounded animal waiting for it to die.

  Love, Scully
• 

  Wild_Thing

  I get what you are saying, Scully. I do not think smoking is wrong. I smoke at times myself (only when I drink! ) I don't even have a problem with her sneaking around and doing it. It is another one of the JWs stupid rules! And I understand WHY she chose to deny it and make my neice and I out to be the untruthful ones, but it still makes me so mad. But, the sad fact is ... even if she had owned up to it and told them that it was none of their business and used it as an opportunity to leave the religion (my preference), she would still be an idiot, selfish, and a bit of a liar. Maybe things will never be "sisterly" between us. Come to think of it ... probably not.
• 

  Country Girl

  Your response should have been "Well, she's an adult, and she is allowed to think for herself. If you would like to take that up with her, that's between you and her." As for your niece, she's merely imitating what she has seen all her life: the crossing of others' personal boundaries, and the paid informant martyr role. Her reward is that she gets "praise" from all around her for ratting out another member of the Witnesses, and her own Mother. You should, perhaps, have confidence that your sister can make her own choices. If they don't seem right to you, well, so be it.

  I am sorry if you find this answer offensive, but you asked for opinions. Give your sister a break. If you weren't putting your noses where they didn't belong, you wouldn't have had them tweaked. Don't aid those of this religion in the pursuit of their KGB-like interrogations.

  Country Girl
• 

  Iforget

  Perhaps more then anything...you feel slighted one more time by the religion. One more time it was chosen over respect for you and your feelings. One more time your family has rejected you in some way, however slight, and you are feeling the rage that we all have at one time or another.

  Maybe instead of looking at it as a slight to you see it from her eyes. Dealing with the elders/family/daughter and maybe she isn't strong enough to do that right now. A divorce and custody battle are in and of themselves too much. She may view your relationship strong enough and you personally strong enough to be slighted so that she won't have to deal with the issue at hand.

  You are strong to her. She is weak. I think about this everytime I have an issue with a sibling. They don't get it and maybe never will but I sure do and I can be there to pick up the pieces in the end.

  Just another view...either way I am sorry for how you are being treated and are feeling.