- Was your non-JW parent ever a JW? No.
- Who was responsible for your religious upbringing? The JW or the non-JW? The JW parent was responsible.
- Did they argue about it? Not much. My father wanted to keep peace in the home, so he didn't interfere for the most part.
- Were you forced to go? "Evidently not". I could choose not to go. I would also be choosing to get a beating, so...I "chose" to go.
- Did the non-JW parent have any real say in how the family celebrated holidays? My father took me to celebrate my fourth birthday, but I think that was my last holiday. The main thing was that he had no desire to celebrate himself as his family situation as a child was pretty screwed up. So it worked out.
- Over all what impact did this split household have on your childhood and even later in life? Well, I figured that my dad was 'worldly' and would probably die at Armageddon. I tried not to think about it too much. A traumatic event in our family (my own attempted suicide out of guilt and depression) caused him to start attending our meetings. I gave a talk at a circuit assembly, and the district overseer gave me a 'W' (Work On It). I took it hard, and my dad got p.o.'d and said he'd never attend another meeting again, because it was nonsense that we were being graded like it was a beauty contest.
- What would you want therapists to know about your situation? Never thought it was relevant. With the JW parent controlling everything, it was like having one parent rather than two--I felt trained to disregard my father's ideas as less than relevant.
- Any other thoughts? Yeah. It sucked. Even with all that, my dad was and is a stand-up guy. I'd be lucky to be half the man he is. Because even with no understanding of all that I had to learn to get out of the JWs, he knew a load o' crap when he saw it. I'm glad he never joined up. In its own way, it helped balance me out, without me even realizing it.
--sd-7