HadEnuf - Oh yes! The whole story, as my mum related it to me, reminded me of the whole JW experience. The whole 'pecking order' system with the women who's spouses were not JWs right at the bottom of the heap, lower even that the children. It was open season with these poor bullied women.
The particular elderette I have just related the experience with my mum, was and is a serious tyrant.
There was a lovely lady from a divided household of whom it was known that her sadistic husband would beat and terrify her and the kids. She found it a nightmare to go to meetings and field service.
On the way out of school one day the elderette made a point of meeting her at the gates. I happened to be there as our children were in the same class.
'Now you really have to put the effort in to go our in FS!' she coldly admonished. 'If we pray, study and serve Jehovah enough he will help us to cope with our trials......so how about Saturday.....you could work with me?'
The poor sister with the sadistic husband, was stunned. 'I'll try', she said.
Elderette buggered off. Poor sister started crying. HE was home on saturdays. She couldn't go out.
This poor woman lived a nightmare pressured life. She was distraught and suffered with demands from every possible angle. It might have been, that if she had not had the added pressure of being a JW she might have survived.
She died, not so long ago.
Her brain illness is believed to have been brought on by severe stress and a regular good beating from her husband.
Her doctor tried to rescue her from the beatings by admitting her to hospital...and because her husband was so mentally 'compromised' he got away with what he did.
I sometimes think of how I found the JW lifestyle unbearable and then think of her. She thought she had to, as a christian tolerate her husband, obey the JW commands, enforced by sister elderette and her cronys. They had NO idea what she suffered. And my God she suffered.
From my experience, the elders wives are the most heartless of all.
