Posts by laissezfaire

59

My wounds opened up badly today

by Maddie in

jw
friends

the past three weeks having been so stressful and very sad.

my ex husband died after being in hospital for just over a week in intensive care.. i was just 18 and he was 21 when we first met and after a whirlwind romance we married 6 months later and have two sons together who are now adults.

although our marriage ended after 25 years and i remarried 7 years ago, he was my first love and i knew him for most of my life.

laissezfaire

I feel your pain and it all too real for me too. One of the few times I saw my son and grandson were at my son’s best friends funeral. We had just

been out a year or so and we loved this boy he was like one of our own in fact he treated me better when my husband and I left then my own son

did. He came over and wanted to talk to us about why and understood and respected us even though he stayed in. He saw that we were not evil

apostates trying to convert him it was our own personal decision with no ill will toward anyone. Anyway at the funeral I could only see my grandson

in the arms of his aunt I couldn't even get within 10 feet of him. At one point when I went to greet the family of the man who died I watched my

son hide behind the literature counter with my grandson.... I wanted to vomit. That is not how I raised him I completely understand the DIL issue

you are having I truly think his wife was jealous of our relationship and like you said just wants to control him. There is so much more to say and I

just can't get it all out now. Just know you are not alone in your pain I cried for you today and for all of us that are being denied the basic human

right of giving and having love for our families. How the WT can think this is love his beyond reason as much as I hurt now and will probably hurt

until I die or it is resolved I do not regret leaving it was the right thing to do... Hugs to you from 10,000 miles away in the middle of the Pacific

Aloha

Michele

PS I just tried to call him because of your situation but when a women answered I hung up I do miss him so much and just want him to know I love him and that is it.

46

Nov 15 WT - stumbled over a teaching? There's no where else to go!!!

by truthseeker in

jw
friends

i just read the nov 15, wt - what a laugh.. so they admit some leave over their teachings and then they say there's no where else to go.

what a joke - they are liars.. .

was it a problem with a teaching?.

laissezfaire

Paragraph 13 urks me a bit....

" If you are a mature publisher who has been assigned to help an inactive one...."

I don't want to be helped I want to be left alone unless you come in truness. Seeing this makes me feel that most that come up to me especially now will not come from a place of love but of duty. If you can't sit down with me and talked to me honestly and openly without an agenda of reporting back to the elders I don't want to talk to you. It is not love it's like corporate sales quotos need to be met or wow look at me I got so and so to come back because of my efforts. Do they think everyone who leaves can't have valid reason? and can be manipulated to come back by guilting us...

There is no beauty in this arrangment and I see right thru it.......white washed graves.......

ugh

2nd thought on this I would rather have an imature publisher to talk to I might get somewhere and get some sense into knocked into them

5

The Facebook Shun

by sass_my_frass in

jw
friends

a modern twist on the shun the other day: somehow an old jw friend had added me to her facebook friends a few months ago.

i thought i'd leave her alone for a while, figured she'd read my blog and discovered my current opinion on the organisation and what they did to my family.

i hadn't messaged her, but the other day i'm on and notice that she's online, so i start a chat.

laissezfaire

I had a similar experience not to long ago with a website called artwanted.com I turned this site on to my now ex jw friend who I painted with for 21/2 years and not to long ago she uploaded a new painting. I made a nice comment and said I looked forward to seeing some of her newer work. Well she then uploaded another one and I went to comment on that and I was blocked! I was shocked but then thought about it and realized how shallow and silly that was. What did she think I would do or say. Was my influence so damaging to her spiritualty that I couldn't even leave a nice comment about her painting. The narrow mindedness of it all is exhausting and ridiculous. I find these acts more damaging to any good she thinks might happen by it,does she really think that will draw me closer to her and the org? Please I want to vomit....... Is her message really the love I want to attach myself too..... I think not.... I derserve better and we all do. I guess we just have to be long suffering in our approach to them and hope that they wake up and if not so be it!

31

HELLO, I'M NEW AND.........

by billie jean in

i never believed a word of any of it !.

raised a j.w from birth, i'd sit in the meetings and at conventions wondering what the hell it was all about and that it was all one big joke and imagine that they''d all suddenly turn around laughing and pointing at me !!

saying something like "haha the joke's on you".

laissezfaire

As a parent of children raised in the religon I wish I could just hug you and say I'm sorry for your parents. My husband ( we are both out after 20 years in) speak often about how we wish we could do it over. Although it wasn't all bad the end result of raising your kids in a bubble is disheartening. The experiences they missed that are so normal like sports, dances,dating, holidays family get togethers etc......just not in their memory banks becasue of us. I thought I would do such a better job than my parents and look what I did. I just can't believe I did that to them.

We have 3 children:

Our middle son was disfellowshipped at 16 and we tried everything to get him back in to no avail he really just didn't believe it anymore; although he really tried at one point when he was 19, I think he just wanted to get us back in his life more fully...can you blame him...it makes us sick to think about it.....he is now happily married for 2 1/2 years and expecting his son our grandson in November!

Our Daughter the youngest was a pioneer when we left and was very stubborn and would not even let us talk to her in any depth as to why we were leaving one year later and time to see how people were treating us she came out and now is leading a very happy functional life on her own on the Mainland..

Our Oldest son is shunning us to the hilt! He will not return any of our phone calls now since March and I have not seen our first grandson since December 06. HIs wife called me a month or so ago and said just leave him alone you have two other children focus on them. How another mother could even speak those words is beyond me but that is what the cult does to some people.

When I think of what is happening I hate that I was so decieved. I told all our kids that if I had known what I know now when I started studying as a young Mom of a 4 month old, I would have never never joined. It breaks my heart to think I have lost a child to this organization which at this point I see no real hope of getting him out of.

I guess I would say as a mom to a son or daughter who is experiencing this is: If they are letting you in their life at all, be as loving as you can they just don't know, like Franz said they are vitims of victims. Because you do know be patient but don't take their digs without a loving firm response,help them to think outside the box and if you can't you have to accept the limitations for now. I struggle often to find balance with this but I know deep in my heart I am not a wicked evil person for choosing to leave and you know that too. Be kind in your dealings and show them you are the wonderful person you are by your actions. Know you are not alone in your pain and anger but continue with what makes you happy and who makes you happy and when the bad days come as we know they do just don't stay to long in that place and make yourself sick. We both hope that one day our family members will come back into our lives and we will be complete. But if they don't we have to learn to be O.K. with what is......even though we know it is so wrong......

Hope that doesn't sound too preachy all the best to you

From a mom to a daughter my hugs to you

Aloha

37

Parents with JW Adult Children Shunning Them - How Are You Coping ?

by flipper in

jw
friends

i do understand your plight - as i have 2 adult jw daughters shunning me aged 21 and almost 20. they married witness boys 2 years ago and it's been 1 year since i've spoke with my younger daughter, 5 months since i went to coffee with my older daughter.

i call them, but they won't return my calls.

i tell them i love them, but it's as if i don't exist.

laissezfaire

We thought of cutting out our son who is shunning us but instead ( with half humor and half serious intentions) we thought this instead leave him a third of what we have but he has to read

Crisis of Conscience and or Christan Freedom. Have a lawyer oversee that is done by asking him some key questions if he answers to our written specifications then he can have his

share. But if not I'll leave him my 2 cents worth literally 2 cents and a note saying have a nice life in the box! I go from being so sad to so angry with him it is amazing to me. You love your

children but when they won't even begin to try to understand your point of view the one who raised him for gods sake that I have to ask my self why do I keep banging my head against the

wall! It hurts but I have to remind my self once in awhile I am not my son. I am complete without him he can complement my life but he is not my life. That was a real sobering moment for

me when I realised that. I don't own him and dont' want to I just want to love him and be a part of his life. If he can not see that I can not make him. Life does go on and there are people

who care.

I can't wait to live my life because of him. But as long as I can I will leave a message once in awhile on his phone telling him I love him and miss him.

I will always love him and will always have my door open to him.

37

Parents with JW Adult Children Shunning Them - How Are You Coping ?

by flipper in

jw
friends

i do understand your plight - as i have 2 adult jw daughters shunning me aged 21 and almost 20. they married witness boys 2 years ago and it's been 1 year since i've spoke with my younger daughter, 5 months since i went to coffee with my older daughter.

i call them, but they won't return my calls.

i tell them i love them, but it's as if i don't exist.

laissezfaire

It has only been 6 months since my son as offically abandon me and my husband( we have been out 2 1/2 years) but I can tell you it is the hardest thing we have gone thru yet. I can lose

all my "friends",I don't care if any of them ever acknowledge my existence again but my son that is sometimes too much to bare. He moved recently moved away to get needed medical

treatment back in January because is wife was deathly sick we thought maybe this would change her heart and his too but it seemed to toughen them even more towards us. My daughter

recieved an email from him and his wife saying we were dead to them and that if she continued to update us about them then they would have to discontinue their relationship with her

because she obivously made her choice to love us and not them and the org. Needless to say she chose reasonableness and since then has not talked to either of them. She and her

other brother( who are both out) are so mad at him for his ignorance that they really dont' want to deal with him at all. My husband and I on the other had keep trying to reach him. We leave

messages telling him to reason with us that we love him and that we will always be here for him. After one such message I got a call from his wife saying why don't you leave him alone you

have two other children why dont' you just focus on them and stop whining about her husband and just move on. Then she proceeds to tell me how wonderful he is doing since he has

married her, he is commenting more at the meetings, reading is bible everyday and going out in service regularly and loves his son so much. It amazes me how truly unloving they are and

yet they go and promote "truth" and love and compassion at the door of strangers and can't even begin to show it to their own family.

I wish I had an answer for myself and how to deal with this let alone anyone else who is dealing with it. the only thing I can do for now is to really try to focus on the now and what I can

influence and enjoy today. Somedays are better then others but the times are getting easier to deal with overall but I will always hope and pray that my son will come back into my life as

well as my 2 1/2 year old grandson that I never really got to know.

My best to anyone dealing with this and just remember we are not alone in this pain.

106

So what caused you to have doubts in the first place?

by nicolaou in

jw
friends

i had no doubts at all about the 'truth' untill a friend of mine in the cong' began falling away.

in trying to help him i had to ask questions and do research and that of course cracked the doors of my mind open for the first time in over thirty years.. years ago, when jwd allowed members to have signatures, i used the following quote from voltaire as mine.

i still love it.. doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous..

laissezfaire

In retrospect there were many things that disturbed me, but like someone else said you just kinda take it all in and move along with the routine of it all. But then one day my husband said to me he had real doubts I of course freaked out more inside but told him He was not going to make me leave it was his deal.

So that being said of course he sent me some links to various websites dealing with his concerns and I woudn't read them. I would see the titles and it would register in my brain but I didn't have the guts or heart to go deeper until one day I just started to look for myself and lo and behold I was floored. Everything I had put stock in, my whole adult life ,my childrens, everything came crashing in.

I started to reserach the concept of a faithful and discreet slave class as the Watchtower saw it and the fact that before Russell there was no one class of people to pass on the food at the proper time. That he as an individual came to his own conclusions with the help of an Adventist and then just branched off and started his own group was surreal to me. Because here was my husband a good man truly just wanting the truth, was being condmenned, bullied, slandered told that his independent thinking was not acceptable and that he would have to wait on Jehovah and be quite or else he was to be disfellowshipped! There was no nice way to leave or even to discuss with openess his true concerns and his concience as active Witness. Of course the problem wasn't with Jehovah it was that he had to wait for men in brooklyn to decide if policy should change!

It all overwhlemed me so much I was tortured in staying and also in leaving it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. But I knew at that point that it was not the truth as I had been led to believe for 20 years. It was a strange day I remember feeling almost relieved when I decided not to go back but then waves of anxiety came over me because my daughter was a pioneer at the time living in our home and my oldest son just had a baby and I knew it would mix things up terribly. But I had to be true to myself even if I did not officially leave because of wanting a relationship with my children and brother. It is a long story and maybe one day I can share it more fully; it did not turn out as planned but I'm still happier I left.

Knowledge is a powerful thing and now I realise that fear of knowledge is also a powerful thing. I don't ever want to close my eyes to doubts or concerns or people or situations that might be different than mine. I was self righteous to think I had the only truth. The quest of "truth" for "truth" really isn't that important to me in terms of religious truth I just think it doesn't exisit. It is more important to me to be descent human being without all the labels and judgement. Life is too short............