Posts by Nickolas

34

Seeking counsel from active or former Elders / COs / DOs

by Nickolas in

jw
friends

a request.

if you are/were not an elder and wish to comment, by all means do so, but please preface your comment accordingly.

if you are posing as an elder, please, please refrain from responding lest you inadvertantly do some damage.. i have been provided hypothetical consequences from the membership at large, now request the answer from a position of authority.. the question.. if the elders in my wife's congregation should decide that i have become a spiritual danger to her, how would they advise her?

Nickolas

The law here says when a woman seeks a legal separation from her husband she is entitled to half the family's net worth and I would not stand in the way of her getting it. Her lifestyle wouldn't skip a beat, so that's not a factor. I don't think it would come to that anyway. She would simply leave and find someone to stay with, as she has stated to me not so long ago, but only if I asked her to and then only under great emotional duress. Whether or not she would do so if advised by her cong (or, as you point out OUTLAW, by her uber-JW-elder brother and SIL, or her MS nephew, or her bethelite nephew) is something I can't read clearly, but I doubt it. More likely unless I asked her to leave she would stay, carry on with her activities, with which I have already told her I will not interfere as much as I may disagree with them, and continue the painful stalemate. If I ratcheted up the pressure (as I am contemplating doing) and the elders reacted accordingly she'd be miserable, but would chalk it up to the price one sometimes has to pay for being in The Truth and she would continue to hope that she may somehow one day save me.

My wife is a wonderful person, far better than I am in many respects. She's completely devoted to the Watchtower but keeps a low profile around me. Her literature never leaves her sewing room except when it's hidden inside her bookbag, she never preaches or finds fault and she bends over backwards to please me, so long as absolutely nothing she does or fails to do can be construed to contravene the expectations, doctrines and teachings of the Watchtower. That, of course, is where the problem lies and where my cooperation and tolerance are wearing dangerously thin. We adore one another but we're not happy and I still haven't figured out how to break this thing open. It's heartbreaking to see her unhappy and to make her even more unhappy has no appeal. My original question is more out of concern how it might affect her than me.

34

Seeking counsel from active or former Elders / COs / DOs

by Nickolas in

jw
friends

a request.

if you are/were not an elder and wish to comment, by all means do so, but please preface your comment accordingly.

if you are posing as an elder, please, please refrain from responding lest you inadvertantly do some damage.. i have been provided hypothetical consequences from the membership at large, now request the answer from a position of authority.. the question.. if the elders in my wife's congregation should decide that i have become a spiritual danger to her, how would they advise her?

Nickolas

A request. If you are/were not an elder and wish to comment, by all means do so, but please preface your comment accordingly. If you are posing as an elder, please, please refrain from responding lest you inadvertantly do some damage.

I have been provided hypothetical consequences from the membership at large, now request the answer from a position of authority.

The question.

If the elders in my wife's congregation should decide that I have become a spiritual danger to her, how would they advise her? Any counsel, qualified or otherwise, would be welcome.

Thank you.

43

Mixed marriages - JW/non-JW - what makes you stay?

by Nickolas in

jw
friends

i know a woman, became a wife .

these are the very words she uses to describe her life .

she said a good day, ain't got no rain .

Nickolas

thanks for pointing out the differences between self medication, problem drinking and alcoholism. But I am already aware of this, however a witness may not and I was commenting from that point of view but I was not clear.

You're welcome, Curtains, but I was more interested in demonstrating to you that I know the difference.

I married a nice Anglican girl and converted her. She took to it like a duck to water and has turned into a JW predator.

I hadn't realised until now, Black Sheep, how similar our stories are. The only difference is that you were a born-in. I, too, married a nice Anglican girl - we even did the service in the Anglican church, performed by the same Anglican minister who baptised her as an infant. Her brother discovered The Truth in early 1974. He had been such a hopeless reprobate before that I was genuinely astonished by his transformation and decided it was worth my while learning what it was all about. My wife wanted nothing to do with it. I started studying, going to meetings and assemblies while my wife held back. By late the following year, 1975, she's studying too. The light came on for me in 1976, before I got baptised but after the failed prophesy that everyone these days seems to deny ever happened. But by then she was hooked. We have a child by now, debts and responsibilities. We start to have minor arguments about the Watchtower and by late 1977 she tells me she wants to get baptised. I say no, she does it anyway, and it has been a malaise in our marriage ever since. I can't improve on your words. I want her back. I'm trying to find her. I catch a glimpse of her now and again.

43

Mixed marriages - JW/non-JW - what makes you stay?

by Nickolas in

jw
friends

i know a woman, became a wife .

these are the very words she uses to describe her life .

she said a good day, ain't got no rain .

Nickolas

Is your JW spouse aware that you are self medicating?

Difficult to say. I don't drink to the point of inebriation - I hate hangovers - just periodically to the point at which the relaxing characteristics of the drug are sufficiently amplified that I don't give a damn anymore. This is not a frequent occurance. My doctor might prefer I used valium, but it just doesn't have the same appeal as a nice Islay single malt, y'know? But don't confuse self medication with alcoholism. Someone who "needs a drink" after a particularly brutal day at the office is self medicating. Someone who needs a drink so his body stops screaming at him is an alcoholic. There is even a difference between problem drinking and alcoholism, although the effects are equally destructive. Alcoholics are addicts, problem drinkers may not be. Alcoholics either can't or find it nearly impossible to moderate their intake, so they must give it up entirely. Problem drinkers, if they on occasion consume alcohol excessively as a mechanism to cope with external issues, will tend not to consume excessively when the issue is addressed and can otherwise learn to drink responsibly. Problem drinkers who consume excess alcohol because they like to get buzzed are in a category all their own. There are also alcoholics who use their perceived issues as an excuse for their alcoholism, when the fact of the matter is if the issues went away they'd still be boozehounds.

All of which to say, Curtains, that the hypothetical husband in our discussion who uses alcohol to calm the infrequent psychological pain brought about by his inability or resistance to cope with the divide between him and his wife will, if he is not alcoholic, no longer do so either if he makes peace with his reality or if his reality changes. If he's alcoholic, that's another problem entirely.

86

MY You Tube video has been removed

by Lady Lee in

my jaw is on the floor.

after many years my youtube video about jehovah's witnesses and mind control has been taken off the internet.

here is what the page says.

Nickolas

If you keep doing that funny shit, OUTLAW, you're going to give me a heart attack. And then how would you feel, eh?

86

MY You Tube video has been removed

by Lady Lee in

my jaw is on the floor.

after many years my youtube video about jehovah's witnesses and mind control has been taken off the internet.

here is what the page says.

Nickolas

I enjoyed all three videos, Lee. Wish I could convince my wife to watch them.

Could be Youtube saw yours as commercially directed? You advertising your services as a therapist?

43

Mixed marriages - JW/non-JW - what makes you stay?

by Nickolas in

jw
friends

i know a woman, became a wife .

these are the very words she uses to describe her life .

she said a good day, ain't got no rain .

Nickolas

Thanks for the dialogue, folks. Today my wife informed me she's going on a four-day convention in a few months, reignighting the slow burn. She's devoted and resolved, I'll give her that much.

I'm going to have an extra double scotch tonight, Curtains. Maybe a triple.

43

Mixed marriages - JW/non-JW - what makes you stay?

by Nickolas in

jw
friends

i know a woman, became a wife .

these are the very words she uses to describe her life .

she said a good day, ain't got no rain .

Nickolas

It sounds almost like the philosophical divide between the two of you, FF, was the straw that broke the camel's back, as opposed the the entire bale. I may be stretching here, but I suspect you would not have defined your marriage as a 9/10.

43

Mixed marriages - JW/non-JW - what makes you stay?

by Nickolas in

jw
friends

i know a woman, became a wife .

these are the very words she uses to describe her life .

she said a good day, ain't got no rain .

Nickolas

This is a bit of a tangent from the OP, but interesting enough to prolong for a little while, Curtains. The common situation is two people married to one another who are polarised with respect to their belief systems and how that affects their lives together. Where we may not be the same is the sentiment expressed in your last statement above. The end of our marriage would be devastating to both my wife and me, so neither one of us would be happy in the circumstance. If, to extend the hypothetical, a husband becomes so obsessed with the divide that separates him from his wife that he takes to drinking excessively, the most logical perspective for the wife would be to urge him to seek counselling rather than threaten to leave him. The next most logical thing might be for her to consider closing the divide in some way, compromise, to get her man off the booze. The problem is not that each partner believes something different, it's that they are living their lives in ways that are incompatible. Back to my particular circumstance, my wife would need only give ground in a few key areas, far less than I have had to compromise myself over the years, to close the divide. It is when there is no further room for compromise that marriages go south.

43

Mixed marriages - JW/non-JW - what makes you stay?

by Nickolas in

jw
friends

i know a woman, became a wife .

these are the very words she uses to describe her life .

she said a good day, ain't got no rain .

Nickolas

Thank you for that, wannaexit. Very much appreciated.

as to alcohol addiction - I would definitely leave if my husband became addicted to alcohol and if he did not seek help that enabled him to stop being addicted. I simply would not tolerate having to put up with my children tiptoeing around him. So yes if my husband became so wrapped up in his jw beliefs that he completely lost his ability to reason and became very very self centered and destructive as one would if one became an alcoholic - I would definitely consider leaving him.

Chicken and egg. I am cognisant of consuming more alcohol when my mind goes to the subject of the OP. My doctor advises that my usual level of consumption is not a health risk, but she also advises that periodically consuming alcohol to numb one's emotions is self medication that can lead to abuse and attendant health issues if the emotional issue is not held in check. After all this time I know it's not going to happen to me, but if I got to the point of alcohol abuse it might be me who is faced with the same decision you're referring to, Curtains. Again, not my situation, but if it's your spouse who's driving you to drink excessively, on who's shoulders does the problem belong? Is it not both?