Posts by Tornintwo

44

Need advice

by Darkknight757 in

hi.i've been pouring over this site for the past few days looking for some advice and i hope there is someone here that can help a guy out.

i'm desperate.....short bio: i came into the organization after high school and shortly after married a wonderful girl who was born-in.we have been happily married now for nearly 20 years and things were well until 2015 hit.

by the way, i currently serve as an elder and have the ""privilege"" of being the "watchtower overseer".. either here nor there, we were told we would never have children but late last year my wife became prego!!

Tornintwo

Hi darkknight - there are a lot more experienced people than me on this board who can help you with fading advice,. Just wanted to say as a woman and a mum how sorry I am for you and your wife, my sister went through this heartbreak 3 times but finally has 2 lovely children, so don't give up hope (I'll pm with you with the treatment that worked for her, just in case it's relevant). The organisation is terrible at shepherding people through loss and trauma, they only tell people to do more and are always ready to reprove & discipline. It sounds like maybe your wife is feeling this too and a bit of time away from the meetings, maybe a few weekends away here and there might do her good, and get her out of the mind control....

I am sure it won't alarm her if you just say 'do you ever have any doubts....?', if she says 'what no! never!' you know where you are, you can just cover it over quickly and say 'I don't know what's wrong with me, think I'm a bit down' or something like that. But she might say, 'well actually, yes.......'. I like Giordanos suggestion of starting with the child abuse issue, for any one with maternal tendencies this is a crucial aspect for awakening. I mean, 1006 pedophiles on file in Bethel in Australia alone and not ONE reported - that's got to ring alarm bells for any decent human being. Best wishes to you both x

21

'Seek the Kingdom First' Economics

by Tornintwo in

jw
friends

has anyone else's family finances been victim to the 'seek the kingdom first' economic policy?.

for years, my husband and i have had our own business, my husband is not the most proactive guy, prefers to go in field service than to work, but he has always encouraged me to 'rely on jehovah and all these other things will be added to you', 'seek the kingdom first' etc etc.

there have been times, such as when i was heavily pregnant and we lost a big deal, that i have been begging jehovah on hands and knees to honour that promise, wondering why he wasn't helping us.

Tornintwo

omg lifeistoshort, you make me feel like a wealthy woman, sounds rough 😓

think maybe we should ditch them both and find ourselves millionaires

18

How was it for you when you had to shun someone?

by Anator in

jw
friends

i remember a good friend when i was in and active who was d'fd.

when he started coming back, for me at that time is was gut-wrenching not to say 'hello' or at the very least encourage him to continue.

i thought even at this time, does this act of shunning really effective?

Tornintwo

this last year there has been a sister coming back in our cong. before I stopped attending I would give her a big encouraging smile whenever possible, also told her daughter to tell her that I hope she'd be reinstated soon. Last thing I saw she came out of a back room meeting with elders in floods of tears with some papers in her hand, I gather a reinstatement request had been rejected. There she was driving nearly an hour to all meetings with 4 kids who all had books prepared and answers at the ready, to be ignored by everyone in attendance, but they had to come up with some excuse not to let her back in. She had dealt with some serious tragedy in her life and her 'sin' came soon after, pretty sure Jesus would have forgiven her. Hope she wakes up to TTATT.

23

Confronting Parents About 607 vs 587

by breezy in

just thought i would update you guys since my 1st post last week.i haven't been to the meeting for about 2 weeks now, and maybe have like 1 or 2 hours of service combined within the past 2-3 months.

i obviously get the love bombing from relatives when they don't see you at the hall for a while.

" we missed you at the meeting last week.

Tornintwo

Well done - breezy bravely done - the ignorance we find in the org is extreme.

Personally after reading a few articles in jwfacts etc. I didn't feel the need to to a great deal of research myself into this date. As soon as I found out the vast majority of historians, who have made it their life's work to research such matters, agree on 587CE, that was enough for me. The witnesses love to use secular historians to back them up when their arguments agree with jw teachings, but when they don't agree they dismiss them as wrong - complete double standards.

Its like when a court finds against the witnesses it is 'satans' court. But when they win a case, Jehovah is using the legal system to advance the preaching work. Yeah right.

63

Just found out their about to baptise my 14 year old boy.

by Crazyguy in

there doing this right under my nose but i just found out.

not sure what to do but would like your help on getting me wt information on my headship role and how they shouldn't be doing this with out my permission.

also would like some help on showing my son the ramifications on what happens to someone when they get baptized and how they'll expect him to treat me.

Tornintwo

My sympathies are with you...my girl got baptised at 14 and even though I was 'in' at the time I knew she wasn't ready and was making an emotional decision to try to fit in. Now she is leaving the religion we have to tread very carefully with a fade so she won't be df'd.

I would try to advise him the things we don't get told when we are baptised, his brain is not even fully developed yet, he is going to mature a lot over the next few years and may want to make different choices, the consequences if he gets baptised at this age are a lot worse than if he just waits it out until he is a bit older to make an informed and mature choice.

As for distracting him from the religion, I didn't try to talk TTATT with my daughter at all, knowing I would push her further in, but she had a lot of problems with friendships in the org, so I just started to let her spend more time with her schoolfriends and she naturally has moved towards them and away from the witnesses, so that now shes made her choice to leave of her own accord. She can't face the judgement of the jws looking at her with criticism because she is associating with 'worldly' ones and she says she can't support a group that wants to see all of her schoolfriends killed at armageddon.

21

'Seek the Kingdom First' Economics

by Tornintwo in

jw
friends

has anyone else's family finances been victim to the 'seek the kingdom first' economic policy?.

for years, my husband and i have had our own business, my husband is not the most proactive guy, prefers to go in field service than to work, but he has always encouraged me to 'rely on jehovah and all these other things will be added to you', 'seek the kingdom first' etc etc.

there have been times, such as when i was heavily pregnant and we lost a big deal, that i have been begging jehovah on hands and knees to honour that promise, wondering why he wasn't helping us.

Tornintwo

Has anyone else's family finances been victim to the 'seek the kingdom first' economic policy?

For years, my husband and I have had our own business, my husband is not the most proactive guy, prefers to go in field service than to work, but he has always encouraged me to 'rely on Jehovah and all these other things will be added to you', 'seek the kingdom first' etc etc. There have been times, such as when I was heavily pregnant and we lost a big deal, that I have been begging Jehovah on hands and knees to honour that promise, wondering why he wasn't helping us. I have been told by elders when were down to our last few pounds that He is a 'last minute' god and we would get help when we really needed it - in actual fact our worldly family have bailed us out several times, but hubby thinks this is from Jehovah also!

The thing is, this in my head now, so this week Im having a bad week in business and I am sat and these niggling thoughts come into my head, 'is it because I'm not going to meetings now J isn't providing for us, is it because I am posting on this ex-jw website?!?!' It's crazy I know, why would almighty God give me a business deal when he simultaneously allows millions of children to die of starvation.

As a result of our family jweconomic policy, we have no savings, no pension and we don't own our own home. I turned down a modelling contract when I was younger and a university place, because it wasn't what the society recommended. And now I'm finally free of this mind control, I still have put up with my husband's seek the kingdom first way of providing for his family. Although I would really like to make some serious changes in our work/life situation, it is extremely difficult to do so because I'm up to my neck in the family business & caring for children, I am currently working on a long term plan but boy I so wish I had the last 25 years back.

38

My First Birthday.....

by The Marvster in

i awoken today and realised immidiately i'm 44 today... and after 3 years of being out, decided to acknowledge my birthday.... i'm off out to treat myself to a big hearty breakfast with cup of tea in the local weatherspoon's by the massive pond full of weird bird-life, later today i'm giving myself a gift of a 90 minute relaxation session in a float tank down by canary wharf in london.... only really have 2 close friends (it's a slow process trusting people agian) and they probably won't be able to see me today, but i'm sure i'll have a belated surprise from them both.... the first thing i did when i remembered was to rush to the computer, connect to the web and put on stevie wonder's 'happy birthday', as i listen to it, tears stream down my face... all those years of my life stolen ' but..... i'm free....'.

Tornintwo

Happy Birthday!!!! Don't forget no chopping anyone's head off!

but seriously, found your post very moving, would love to give you a big hug

54

Paranoia after today's Watchtower

by Truthexplorer in

boy oh boy did i feel paranoid at today's wt.

not only are we to watch our associations outside of the congregation, but also watch our associations 'within' the congregation.

this was emphasised by the wt study conductor.

Tornintwo

They still do marking where I am, although it might not have that label as such.

About a year ago In another cong the elders found out a boy of about 20 went to a 'worldly' party and kissed a girl, all of the youths in the congregation were told by the elders not to associate with him for 6 months, he stuck it out and after his 'punishment' was allowed to associate with them again. He's one of the only ones with a car so the kids were glad to have him back.

i just find it crazy, what are other kids of 20 doing sexually? This guy is crossing his legs for the org. And makes one small mistake, a kiss, and so has to face social isolation for 6 months, poor guy, surprised it didn't wake him up. Of course they're all patting themselves on the back that the 'discipline' worked.

43

What are the things that wake people up from the Watchtower Corporation?

by punkofnice in

when i became an elder i saw the dark side.

a side i previously believed couldn't possibly exist in the one true religion of the happiest people on earth.. then they rolled out 'overlapping generations(tm)' and that was the last straw.. all my life i had doubts but surpressed them thinking i was at fault and not the cult leaders.. it seems more likely that now the governing body are parading around like popes, wearing their expensive jewellery, that this will nauseate even dyed in the wool jws.. i wonder if the wake up can be condensed into main categories?.

1. experiencing the cruel handling of matters by the wbt$ reps.. 2. crazy doctrine (eg.

Tornintwo

I think there has to be some moment which makes you think 'maybe this isn't Jehovah's organisation....'

For me it was having my kids mistreated by a prominent elder, who showed no remorse whatsoever, a real nasty piece of work - next assembly who's giving the talk about being more loving? - that was the first moment when I thought 'maybe Jehovah's spirit isn't here after all.....' -

That got the ball rolling, then there were many other examples of lack of love, judgementalism, mistreatment of vulnerable ones. People saying bat**** crazy things when my son drifted away such as 'it's worse than if he had died....' What!?....An elder gave a talk and emphasised that all children of non-witnesses will die at Armageddon, etc etc...the snowball effect was in flow...

All of this comes to the point when you 'allow' yourself to research your doubts and look at the other side of the argument, thankfully I found this forum and JWfacts very quickly - bang - eyes open!

54

Paranoia after today's Watchtower

by Truthexplorer in

boy oh boy did i feel paranoid at today's wt.

not only are we to watch our associations outside of the congregation, but also watch our associations 'within' the congregation.

this was emphasised by the wt study conductor.

Tornintwo

Sounds like the anti communist paranoiia in the McCarthy era in the USA....

Or worse East Germany in the Stazi era....

Or China today...

and so on.....