RebelWife

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Posts by RebelWife

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  27

  Anyone ever disfellowshipped for gluttony?

  by gaiagirl in

  1. watchtower
  2. beliefs

  i never knew or heard of anyone, and remember many, many members of congregations who clearly ate much more than they needed to for health.

  since the bible lumps gluttons with other "sinners" such as fornicatiors, why does wtbts not prosecute gluttons?

  perhaps elders meetings aren't as much fun when you only get to ask questions like "what did you eat next?

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  RebelWife

  I asked hubby about that once. (One of his "in" relatives, an elder, no less, is quite rotund.) Uh........
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  23

  Bizarre conversations

  by RebelWife in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  tula and i started talking about this yesterday.

  can anybody tell us what's going on here or how to deal with these goofy conversations?

  we're not talking about anything even remotely connected with religion, god, the bible or jws.

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  RebelWife

  Jim_TX, I was being sarcastic. Sorry. I know exactly what you mean. Yes, alone.
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  23

  Bizarre conversations

  by RebelWife in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  tula and i started talking about this yesterday.

  can anybody tell us what's going on here or how to deal with these goofy conversations?

  we're not talking about anything even remotely connected with religion, god, the bible or jws.

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  RebelWife

  Sweetface2233, I see what you mean, but that's just thinking out loud and eventually getting around to an answer. Annoying, maybe, but not unusual. What I'm talking about is when they don't ever get around to an answer and what they do say is not even related to the question. I have run into this occasionally with other people, but not consistently.

  When my husband gets really defensive and says something about not giving the "right" answer or answering "the way I want" him to, I have to wonder who in his past gave him such a hard time. There's almost never any tension in the air preceding this, so I don't see that it's related to me. It seems very much like a response to someone else.

  Maybe it's being preoccupied and only half listening and then panicking because he's been conditioned by someone that there'll be hell to pay if he doesn't answer. And then transferring his annoyance with this person/these people to me.

  He doesn't like to talk about his past and doesn't remember a lot of it, so he gets frustrated if I poke around too much.

  Jim_TX, maybe it is just the person. I just wish I knew why. Well, not really. What I really want to know is how to deal with it or make it stop. Good luck, right?

  Here's another one: We can be talking about maybe having dinner with Couple X. I might say she's thinking about dying her hair purple. Hubs says, "Who?" Or I ask if he let Pet X out, but I say "her," and he asks which animal I'm talking about. (Uh, the other two are male.) In all fairness, though, people do that all the time.

  It tends to make me be 'silent' a lot - alone with my thoughts.

  Whatever do you mean?
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  23

  Bizarre conversations

  by RebelWife in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  tula and i started talking about this yesterday.

  can anybody tell us what's going on here or how to deal with these goofy conversations?

  we're not talking about anything even remotely connected with religion, god, the bible or jws.

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  RebelWife

  I asked because it's definitely not "regular" in my experience. I didn't realize I was being offensive. If he and I were from different parts of the country and I were in the company of people from that area, I'd probably ask if it's a regional thing.
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  23

  Bizarre conversations

  by RebelWife in

  1. social
  2. relationships

  tula and i started talking about this yesterday.

  can anybody tell us what's going on here or how to deal with these goofy conversations?

  we're not talking about anything even remotely connected with religion, god, the bible or jws.

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  RebelWife

  Okay. Tula and I started talking about this yesterday. Can anybody tell us what's going on here or how to deal with these goofy conversations? We're not talking about anything even remotely connected with religion, God, the bible or JWs. It could be about the dog's water bowl, my car or the weather.

  It's like my husband heard a totally different question. For instance, if I ask if he needs me to pick up some more Tums, I won't get a yes or no. I might get something like an explanation of what Tums do for him. He just starts on some long-winded "explanation" sort of answer to a yes or no question. When I re-ask the question, he starts getting angry, especially if I say it's just a simple yes or no that I'm looking for. Sometimes I'll say, "So that's a yes?" This gets him really defensive. He will also say that he's sorry he didn't give me the right answer or didn't answer the way I wanted him to.

  I think he's being sarcastic when he says this, but it's really hard to pick up on the sarcasm in his tone. When we are actually arguing, he says words that impy sarcasm, but the tone of voice is missing. It really weirds me out because I can't tell if he's being sincere or not. It didn't used to even occur to me that he might be being sarcastic. I have friends who have been married a LOT longer than we have, and they can't tell when their husbands are pulling their leg, but I can tell their husbands are. So it's not like I'm retarded when it comes to reading people.

  The thing about not giving me the right answer or not answering the way I want him to seems really peculiar. I'm like WTF??? When I ask him what that means or tell him I didn't have an answer in mind, he gets argumentative. I totally don't get it.

  I feel that cognitive dissidence thing happening to me. Very Twilight Zone. I have to say this used to happen a lot more than it does now, but it still drives me nuts! Has anybody else experienced this? Is it a JW thing or what?
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  39

  You just can't reach some people-they just don't get it!

  by dawg in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey guys, album is going great so far... i hope we can finish it in 2008, around may or june.

  anyway, i just had a thought which made me stop in for a while.

  i was discussing something with a friend the other day, i hadn't even started speaking nor had i brought up the core of my point before he started screaming like some wild manaic; he started making up "straw man" arguments one after the other ad infinum, yelling like a banshee and accusing me of all sorts of thoughts that i don't believe... it was really bazarre.

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  RebelWife

  steve2, I know you're talking to Tula, but what I'm talking about is normal, everyday kind of stuff -- like if I ask if he needs me to pick up some more Tums. I won't get a yes or no. I might get something like an explanation of what Tums do for him. I don't know -- it makes no sense.
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  39

  You just can't reach some people-they just don't get it!

  by dawg in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  hey guys, album is going great so far... i hope we can finish it in 2008, around may or june.

  anyway, i just had a thought which made me stop in for a while.

  i was discussing something with a friend the other day, i hadn't even started speaking nor had i brought up the core of my point before he started screaming like some wild manaic; he started making up "straw man" arguments one after the other ad infinum, yelling like a banshee and accusing me of all sorts of thoughts that i don't believe... it was really bazarre.

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  RebelWife

  Maybe someone can help me with this. In dealing with a certain JW even in a personal conversation not scripture related, I keep getting NON-ANSWERS.

  It's like others on this thread...the ISSUE of the SUBJECT matter is totally ignored, and instead they use some trivial thing to try to redirect the conversation. Or they declare this trivial thing as the answer to your question.

  How do you deal with this?

  Oh, thank you for bringing this up! My husband does this with all kinds of questions that I ask -- I mean really trivial, household stuff. It's like he heard a totally different question. He just starts on some long-winded "explanation" sort of answer to a yes or no question. When I re-ask the question, he starts getting angry, especially if I say it's just a simple yes or no that I'm looking for. Sometimes I'll say, "So that's a yes?" This gets him really defensive. He will also say that he's sorry he didn't give me the right answer or didn't answer the way I wanted him to.

  I think he's being sarcastic when he says this, but it's really hard to pick up on the sarcasm in his tone. When we are actually arguing, he says words that impy sarcasm, but the tone of voice is missing. It really weirds me out because I can't tell if he's being sincere or not. It didn't used to even occur to me that he might be being sarcastic. I have friends who have been married a LOT longer than we have, and they can't tell when their husbands are pulling their leg, but I can tell their husbands are. So it's not like I'm retarded when it comes to reading people.

  The thing about not giving me the right answer or not answering the way I want him to seems really peculiar. I'm like WTF??? When I ask him what that means or tell him I didn't have an answer in mind, he gets argumentative. I totally don't get it.

  As to how I deal with it, I usually go with the, "So that's a yes?" if that's what he kinda, sorta ended up saying. If he's not being too defensive or argumentative, I just give him THE LOOK or get kind of snappy in a playful way. If he didn't even come close to an answer or the mood is all wrong, I just let it go unless it's something I have to know right then. In that case -- oh crap, here we go. I mentally roll my eyes around my head a few times and try to stay patient. Usually, I start off with something like, "So (encapsulated version of what he just said)?" Or I start pulling teeth and we both get mad.

  I'd like to know how others deal with this, too. Makes me nuts! I feel that cognitive dissidence thing happening to me. Very Twilight Zone. I have to say this used to happen a lot more than it does now. I try to make him feel safe expressing himself, even if what he says doesn't make any sense to me. He has recently started expressing his feelings or wondering about things on occasion without any prompting, which is new for him.

  Want to start a new thread with this?
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  63

  Disfellowshipped

  by LadyCCC in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  iam now as what was announced at a recent meeting that iam "no longer a jehovah's witness" all of my family and friends are witnesses so this will ailenate me from all of my friends and family.

  but i feel like i don't want to go back.

  i really hate the feeling of isolation and shamefulness while iam sitting in the meeting, what's the point of it all.

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  RebelWife

  Hi. My husband is a recovering JW. (I've never been one.) I just had this thought: If your dog poops on the carpet, do you ignore him for six months?

  I recently read that a friend is someone who calls you when they don't have anything to say. There are people who do that and aren't really friends, but you know what I mean. They don't need a reason to call you. When you do need them, they're right there & you can't get rid of them. That's how people are when they love you. If they don't act that way, they don't really love you. So why have them?

  How do you respond to their intrusive & belligerant questions? Be straight-up and simple and don't explain. The more you explain, the less credible your explanation sounds. If they are genuinely interested, they can do their own research & then discuss it with you.

  Don't settle for scraps masquerading as love. You deserve more -- much, much more. If you believe in God, then you probably believe that all of His creations are beautiful and wonderful. Wouldn't this include you?

  Not having been a JW, I know I can't possibly understand, but I do know the feeling of having been lied to all my life and wanting to believe the lies so that weird, disorienting, surreal feeling and the who-am-I question would go away. It's been a few years for me, and it still hits me every now & then, but the real world is better than LaLa Land.
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  25

  Apostate terminology

  by Mum in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  my daughter and i, fun-loving apostates that we are, have some terms we use regarding the wt organization and other cults.

  i would like my fellow posters here to tell us their terms, buzz words, etc., to add to our list: to get the ball rolling, two of our favorites are:.

  cookie-cutter theology.

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  RebelWife

  Watchsewer
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  39

  Help needed: Killing the 'The light gets brighter' argument?

  by jah1914 in

  1. watchtower
  2. bible

  so after the revelation study last night where the paragraph was talking about how russell's interpertation of revelation basically didn't work and got discarded, my wife comments with the same old,"the light gets brigther, that's why i respect fds because at least they will change when they figure out something is wrong.

  " (insert vomit here) afterwards, me and the book study conductor(i have to at least give him credit, he is someone i can talk to freely about my questions and he has not,as of yet, turned me in) got into a discussion of what 'the light gets brighter' really means.

  he basically says so the brothers have made changes, so what?

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  RebelWife

  Sorry -- can't paragraph tonight. Anyway, it's a pitch-black night. The sun starts to come up. It gets a little brighter, and you see a large black object. Can't tell what it is, but it's shaped roughly like a large animal. Okay. So far, you can tell it's not a house or a book or even a cat. Light gets a little brighter. Whoa, wait. Now it looks like a barn. Gets a little brighter, and now it looks like a penguin. Sun's coming up pretty good now. I think it's a chair. Oh, wait. I'll be darned. It's a tree. Actually, it's a black and white cow. Well, at least I got the black and white part right with the penguin. Does it make sense that anyone could see such a wildly-differing assortment of things?