Attn Unbeleiving Mates (ubm's): "I'm a dub! I'm right! Join or who cares!"

by Check_Your_Premises 71 Replies latest jw friends

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  Check_Your_Premises

  A letter to my wife:
  
  I just want to say a few things to you. I am writing to you since we just don't get to talk enough.

  I learned the hard way that the only way to deal with our current situation is to try to understand eachother better, instead of losing my temper over frustrations about what I don't understand. So I am trying very hard to understand.

  I have felt overwhelmed in the last several months with a desperation to try to understand you, your decision to become a witness, and all the implications that will come from your decision. It consumes my every spare moment. I think you have sensed my emotional and mental exhaustion. Unfortunately, I feel alone in this search for answers. Maybe I am wrong but I don't get the sense that you are trying as hard to understand how this change is affecting me, our lives together, or what I hoped and was made to expect our marriage would be.

  Let me explain. In a sense, I think you feel this was the right thing to do for you. Since you are utterly convinced of that, it seems to me that you think your job is done. You have done the right thing. There is nothing left for you to consider. I also feel that the only legitimate response expected from me is to agree and join you.

  But right and wrong are only moral choices. The realities of life requre us to deal with consequences as well. Obviously you feel that the benefits of joining far outweigh any costs. But there will be costs. All choices have costs. And you are not the only one who will bear them.

  Even if you are morally right to join, I don't think it frees you from any concern about how I feel. If I am morally wrong for not joining, I don't think that means my thoughts, feelings, and concerns can be simply dismissed as unfortunate but invalid. Do you think that? I am not saying that is how you look at it. I am just saying that is how I feel sometimes. I need to know that my thoughts, feelings, and concerns matter to you beyond how they relate to my anticipated conversion. I am more than just a potential convert. I am a person. I am your husband.

  Maybe you don't know how to approach me. But all I want and all I have to know, is that my thoughts, feelings, and concerns are important to you. Otherwise, I will keep feeling alone in this. And I don't think I should feel that way. This is your marriage too.

  All my love.

  Your husband and brother in His service,
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  jgnat

  Wow, if I was the wife getting this, I would wonder if you were winding up to get ready to leave me. Are you looking for reassurance that she will be there to hear you, to consider your feelings? (I know, I know, stupid trying to get that from someone courting a cult).
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  Check_Your_Premises

  I was hoping you would take a look at this J.

  I haven't given it to her. But I am just so fed up that she never even asks me how I feel about this. Or any specific questions about how this might not be what I expected when I married her.

  I just want her to act more interested in me besides whether or not I am "starting to believe it is the truth".

  Don't you get frustrated with that attitude?

  Plus, I just want us talking about it more. Right now, I am doing all the work. I feel like I am constantly fighting for an appropriate moment to talk. Which isn't easy when you have kids.

  CYP
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  lonelysheep

  Wow, CYP. That would make me cry, and I don't mean in a bad way toward you, either. I mean it would make me think because I was once in your wife's shoes but unbaptized. My husband constantly told me he was not going to ever become jw's at all, and that was that.
  That is the attitude she's swayed to have: "there's hope for your unbelieving mate" bullshit. You are right in what you wrote to her. The marriage is about you, too. Your feelings are just as important as hers. I must say, you wrote it in such a pleasant way, so that she ought to see it is not you giving her an ultimatum in your marriage, but the WTS. That realization may freak her out, but so be it. It's true. They don't want her to have a happy medium. They say it in so many words to cover their ass, but imply differently on a constant basis. Hope for the non-jw unbelieving mate. (More like despair.)

  If this doesn't wake her up, I don't know what will. You sound like you love her dearly and are trying very hard. Nah... I know you are!
  Marriage becomes he, she and jehobee when it shouldn't be that way. The WT needs to butt out.
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  Check_Your_Premises

  
  Thanks lonely,

  I think I really need to hear from the ladies on this one. I don't think she will think I am leaving her, because I am nearly fanatical on that point. We have kids. They deserve an intact home.

  But I want to see her acting interested in my views. That is all I am asking for. I want her to approach me about this instead of me always trying to pry things out of her.

  Will this convey that message in womaneze?

  CYP
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  defd

  Check your prem

  You probably dont care to hear my thoughts on this. But I think that letter is very proper. I se nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact she is under obligation to consider your feelings," Rules of marraige according to the bible."

  D.
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  95stormfront

  A very moving letter. I wish I'd had the eloquence to write something like that when my wife first started studying. Perhaps things would hve turned out differently.

  Whenever me and the wife talks about what our plans were pre and post marriage it seems she alway starts out with what our "supposed" plans were after she'd been baptised and found "da troof"...as if what we planned to do before and immediately after we were married is of no consequence. It is me that always have to snap her back to reality that indeed that is not what "we" planned to do........what we had planned to do is A, B, and C before and after we were married...plans of which I am still committed to.

  Frankly, I'm getting weary of more and more sharing our bed not talking about what we want or once wanted to do together or making plans on what we want to do in the future, but with the smell of magic markers screeching across cheap smelly paper; her underlining tripe answers in a magazine or listening to a synopsis of the latest article from the "slave" always so "timely". I love this woman dearly, but, I'm getting tired of having a companion constantly in "WT Salesman" mode.
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  jgnat

  To understand what defd is saying, C_Y_P, check the appropriate chapter in the Secret to Family Happiness book. That book is a double-edged sword for JW's with UBM's. They are required to be patient and understanding. But, typically, the WTS doesn't give much advice on HOW to accomplish this. Whenever I have used this book with my JW husband, he ties himself in knots trying to comply, and ends up resentful that I would demand that he be nicer.

  It's a good letter, but be more specific on what you want. I'd think some one-on-one times, just the two of you, maybe dinner dates on Wednesdays, might help. I think you need some scheduled time to connect.
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  Check_Your_Premises

  Defd,

  I absolutely care about your thoughts. I do hope to speak to you more in the future. I am just ridiculously busy lately. I am actually looking at a few jw boards to join, so I can understad the jw perspective better, and in anonymity.

  Thanks for your thoughts.

  CYP
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  Check_Your_Premises

  I'm getting tired of having a companion constantly in "WT Salesman" mode.

  Yeah, I kind of shut her down on that some. She said she wants to ask me what I think. I told her that she doesn't really care what I think. She denied that. But I said, "You aren't asking me what I think because you think I might have something important to say. You are asking me what I think so you can try to refute it with some jw talking point. Seriously, it is not like anything I say would ever mean anything to you if it went against the jw beleifs. So that means we aren't having a conversation between two people. You are selling me something, and I am supposed to buy it. You are a teacher. I am a student. After awhile, who wants to talk to someone who doesn't care what you think?"

  She seemed to appreciate that.

  And it is a good thing for us to remember as well.