Posts by roberto avon

66

Jehovah's Witness Tragedy - a series of installments.

by Julia Orwell in

i'm working on a short story/novella about a jw family.

it's called the opal ring.

i will be posting it in installments, and would like some feedback on it.

roberto avon

Julia Orwell,
really nice and interesting reading! I just can't wait for the next chapter.

Village Girl, very good advice. I also wrote a book about my life among the Jw's even if my English is very poor. From next september I will take Enflish lessons and try to to reach a decent level so that I can re-write my book. I wrote it in English, changed names of persons and places, because my wife is still in ( very liberal ).
Also for me, wrting the book was at therapy.

What I did was starting the book with a " glossary".
I explain in an ironic way all these silly Jw's words and expressions as

Proclaimers

You are trying to get your well deserved rest on Sunday morning after a
hard week and you hear the bell ringing? These ball breakers are publishers and they are trying to save your life so that you
can live forever on paradise earth with your wife and have a lion as a pet. So if you maybe
intended to get divorced from your wife, don't spend your money in
lawyers because the end of the world is coming right now. If you think to get divorced first and than enter in the JWs organization, be careful,
your new wife may be even worse and you will have to stay with her for
eternity.
Once in paradise, leaving your wife alone with the lion won't work( he
will eat only grass ), so you'd better get used to it. So just tell
them to go away because you are an apostate ( somebody who is against them)and they won't bother you anymore.

What do you think about it?

67

Raising kids - JW mother, agnostic father

by Zana in

my wife and i have two wonderful children aged 1 and 3. i was raised as a lutheran but stopped believing in my late teen years.

my wife is what i would call a liberal jw (yes, i believe such people exist .

sooner or later our children will have questions about religion and the differences mom and dad show towards it.

roberto avon

When my daughter was 8 or 9 she told her mother that she didn't believe in God
and that was terrible for her.
My daughter, was the only one of my kids who attended regurarly the meetings.
My wife used to tell her bible stories of the terrible yellow book but she preferred
my tales ( Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Grimm tales ). When my daughter was about 6 or 7 she didn't want to go to the Kh anymore and we didn't force her. I used to organize
her birthdays parties and together we baught the first christmas tree.
This is what I mean with compromise
My wife; yellow book, meetings and all the rest that Indon't know
Myself; birthday parties, christmas halloween
Maybe ai was lucky, by the way she is 26 now but she adores her mother and also her mother adores her.

Let's not forget one thing, we married in 1987 when Armagheddon was very near ( 1914 generation ). So if she decided to marry me knowing that Armagheddon was near to come means she is very liberal.

67

Raising kids - JW mother, agnostic father

by Zana in

my wife and i have two wonderful children aged 1 and 3. i was raised as a lutheran but stopped believing in my late teen years.

my wife is what i would call a liberal jw (yes, i believe such people exist .

sooner or later our children will have questions about religion and the differences mom and dad show towards it.

roberto avon

Hi Zana,

if you marry a Jws as an agnostic or ( ex ) catholic there is a middle road. At the beginning, as in my experience, Jws were much more involved in our lives than after that my grown up children deicded they were agnostic or atheist, now there is almost no influence from the Wt anymore and we are " almost " normal."

I say almost because if you have these people around you ( family and members of the congregation ) things can change quickly. For example my wife was fading away but since here parents moved near to where we live ( same congreation of my wife ) I can notice a difference because my wife feels the pressure to attend meetings. Also ( whatnI didn't know but she told me ) her father tried to convince her to take the youngest kid ( 13 years ) to the KH.

But she replied that if the boy didn't want to she was not going to oblige him. As you see it never stops...

67

Raising kids - JW mother, agnostic father

by Zana in

my wife and i have two wonderful children aged 1 and 3. i was raised as a lutheran but stopped believing in my late teen years.

my wife is what i would call a liberal jw (yes, i believe such people exist .

sooner or later our children will have questions about religion and the differences mom and dad show towards it.

roberto avon

Phrow, you make it seem very simple and easy. Unfortunately it isn't. I was succesful with all my kids till now and 90% of the things you said I also did.
I stepped on my toes when I had to but I have a lot of examples in Italy where the children chose the jw religion. I was the one who compared Jws with al qaeda sleeper cells. They go to a friend or family member of yours, maybe after 3,4 or 5 years and speak to them while facing a difficult moment or depression and selle thei
paradise on earth tale. Before you know it,'s loo late.

A lot also depends on how your kids are. My daughter, when she was 8 or 9, told her mother that she didn't believe in god.

You and I succeeded to keep them out of the cage but Imhave to admit that I was lucky and also thanks to my wife who agreed or accepted my kids doing judo, soccer, boxe, dance lessons, chess, heavy metal ( this was very difficult for us ).

67

Raising kids - JW mother, agnostic father

by Zana in

my wife and i have two wonderful children aged 1 and 3. i was raised as a lutheran but stopped believing in my late teen years.

my wife is what i would call a liberal jw (yes, i believe such people exist .

sooner or later our children will have questions about religion and the differences mom and dad show towards it.

roberto avon

Hi Pbrow,

you are right and it is what I did ( a big part of what you told ) but you forget that maybe the " jw " mother doesn't want the children

to celebrate birthday parties, go out with wordly friends and so on.

You have to find a compromise with your wife because if you don't ( usually they spend more time with the kids )

they surely will start to indoctrinate the kids.

67

Raising kids - JW mother, agnostic father

by Zana in

my wife and i have two wonderful children aged 1 and 3. i was raised as a lutheran but stopped believing in my late teen years.

my wife is what i would call a liberal jw (yes, i believe such people exist .

sooner or later our children will have questions about religion and the differences mom and dad show towards it.

roberto avon

What I do not know if they push for a bible study because we are a mixed couple and the were afraid tomloosing the kids, anyway it didn't work.

67

Raising kids - JW mother, agnostic father

by Zana in

my wife and i have two wonderful children aged 1 and 3. i was raised as a lutheran but stopped believing in my late teen years.

my wife is what i would call a liberal jw (yes, i believe such people exist .

sooner or later our children will have questions about religion and the differences mom and dad show towards it.

roberto avon

Hello Zana,

they tried when they were 13/14 ( an elder ) but as I told you I didn't let them. My brother in law

is an atheist married with a Jw ( sister ) and he is allowing that his son has a bible study ( he started when he was 14 ).

Their marriage was far more complicated.

67

Raising kids - JW mother, agnostic father

by Zana in

my wife and i have two wonderful children aged 1 and 3. i was raised as a lutheran but stopped believing in my late teen years.

my wife is what i would call a liberal jw (yes, i believe such people exist .

sooner or later our children will have questions about religion and the differences mom and dad show towards it.

roberto avon

Hi Zana,

I understand that it is a little bit strange. As I told you, the first 4/5 years of my marriage I had a bible study and attended 70/80% of the meetings with my wife.

She used to read bible stories from the yellow book to my first daughter. At the beginning I didn't interfere to much with the education of my kids, I just tried, since I was working and travelling a lot, to play with them and before sleeping read them some stories as Peter Pan, Pinocchio other Grimm stories or I just invented them ( you can immagine which they preferred ).

Another thing to consider is that at christmas we used to go to my parents ( catholic ) who celbrated christmas.

In Italy religion is " almost " obligatory at school but we decided not to let them attend. But, for example at dinner when we discussed the evolution theory my wife told them the Wt point of view and I just tried to explain my kids that it was just a point of view and that the evolution was antoher possibility of how life on earth started.

My father, only once, told me I was allowing my wife to much and that I had to intervene but Imtold him that everyting was under control.

The important things that I did was ;

- not allowing the kids to attend the meetings during the week. An elder once asked why and I told them; " meetings finish to,late and they have to go to school." He than asked me at which time they went to bed ( what I expected ) and I told him 8.30 so that he coulnd't go on with the discussion.

- iI absolutely didn't want them to have a bible study ( besides the mother ) before an highschool degree

- I allowed my kids to read Harry Potter and play with yu ghi oh cards.

- for me school and education was very important

At 8 or 9 my daughter told her mother she was an atheist. I think my two sons are agnostic as I am.

Yes though she is very liberal I think it is difficult for her but honestly in 27 years the distance between her and the congregation grew steadily. When the Jws in the 80s spoke of Armagheddon ( 1914 generation ) she married me and had kids.

The last memorial when she came back home she was sad but she didn't tell me anything. I used to acvomany her so now and than but 7 years ago a very aggressive overseer tried to convert the whole family and I almost had to throw him out ( my wife told him that I didn't want him to come ).

They just cannot respect me.

I am trying to tell her that here parents made an enormous mistake by joining this religion and that they are all nuts. I spoke to her about child abuse but she didn't want to read B. Anderson's website. But she told me she believed me.

She usually answers; ; " why should I leave my religion, I go not evem once a week to the KH and I just go and pray ).

She has always protected her private life and has some very food non Jw friends.

She once told me that she will not change this, even if th Gb obliges her.

Let us see...

16

Can a marriage between a catholic and a jw work?

by roberto avon in

this topic was posted yesterday on an italian fb page.

i replied that my personal experience was very positive.

of course i have to admit that my.

roberto avon

scary21, nice reading you. My wife was baptized when we married. From non practising catholic I became bible student of the Jws but after a year and a half I stopped, just because I couldn't believe this nonsense. The first five years of our marriage I usually accompanied her to the meetings and some assembly ( a horror for me ) then I totally stopped going. As our kids grew up they decided that they absolutely didn't want to be a Jw. My son is engaged now with a non practising catholic and my daughter was with a practising catholic. Very curious if my kids will ( re ) convert to the catholic religion or will convince their partners in a non religious marriage. Concerning myself, I became agnostic, however, since Frances became Pope I feel myself a little more involved as I love his messages.

16

Can a marriage between a catholic and a jw work?

by roberto avon in

this topic was posted yesterday on an italian fb page.

i replied that my personal experience was very positive.

of course i have to admit that my.

roberto avon

ok, I accept your point of view, especially what you say that if I would have been a Jw ( the contrary ). But as all marriages there is a dompromise.

I have to admit that my wife was very happy that the " blood question " was under my responsability....