Posts by Flipping El

42

Ongoing frustration with wife

by Flipping El in

i've tried taking the slow, patient approach with my wife.

i believe i first posted here about 13 months ago about my wife.. we've always had good communication and could talk endlessly about philosophy, neuroscience, sociology and then when i learned the ttatt, i clammed up a bit about spiritual things.

i'd always been fairly liberal, suggesting other alternative ideas, but then i told my wife about the un/ngo scandal (i ran across the guardian story doing a talk as an ms, lol!

Flipping El

Apognophos - good thread and points in there. Control & love are all mixed up together. I've been trying to assume more control and direction. In that thread Muddy Waters made a good point: " The husband is controlled by the standards of the organization all bound up within his self-righteous little WT wife" - she says something and you know that there's a WT article about it somewhere... easier to just not debate it! I've been getting serious about having follow up questions & anticipated responses (Bible-based for now) for when these come up.

stuckinarut2 - sorry to hear you're in a similar circumstance! I'm glad there's this forum - life in the transition period can be frustrating and isolating. Makes you feel like you're taking crazy pills!

jwfacts - Questions! totally! Yeah, that's the hard part. I need to do that more. It's possible that she does feel that I may leave her. I definitely give her positive reinforcement, do special things with her and try to talk about future plans together so she knows I'm not imagining some alternative future without her.

Good point on the hypocritical meeting attendance thing. Part of that is illness and part of it is anxiety (she says in part because of "incorrect / ignorant / negative" things I bring up). Sometimes, there's so much anger, anxiety and desparation swirling around the house, I've just gone to get away from it all! And read this forum or some self-help book in the audience on my phone and wait for it to be over. But yeah, that isn't a long term strategy. In the last two weeks, when she's not gone for any reason, I just don't move a muscle, do something else and don't talk about it.

The not talking about it is bad! I'm attempting to obtain an assertiveness and decisiveness (aka, getting my balls back) that I seemed to have lost in the last few years of ignoring my doubts and dealing with a difficult situation where I was questioning my sanity. I'm so glad there's resources online like JWFacts!!! Every time I see a stupid JW.ORG logo, I write JWFacts.com on it.

42

Ongoing frustration with wife

by Flipping El in

i've tried taking the slow, patient approach with my wife.

i believe i first posted here about 13 months ago about my wife.. we've always had good communication and could talk endlessly about philosophy, neuroscience, sociology and then when i learned the ttatt, i clammed up a bit about spiritual things.

i'd always been fairly liberal, suggesting other alternative ideas, but then i told my wife about the un/ngo scandal (i ran across the guardian story doing a talk as an ms, lol!

Flipping El

Wow! So many responses to this thread! Thanks for everybody putting their two cents in and trying to add to the discussion.

From some of the guy's comments here, I can see that I'm definitely not alone. Looks like the increasing pressure from the past year or so has made my wife want to ask what is going on. I think she really thinks something will change on my end so I'll want to stay as a JW.

Too bad to hear some of you like disposible hero of hypocrisy & OneEyedJoe are having a hard time even getting a conversation with your wife. Mine just ends the same way, "so, how are you going to resolve this and increase your activity?"

LisaRose - you're absolutely right! It's a timebomb. And we both know it. Many couples in a similar situation may also know it. The indoctrination of "the 3 fold cord" is a huge factor. But also, when it comes down to it, the JW way of thinking, schedule & behavior is really incompatible with much of what goes on outside. I know so many JWs that don't even want to go to a Football or Hockey game because it's awkward with the national anthem. My personal integrity is more important than being a silent, complicit drone! 100%!

42

Ongoing frustration with wife

by Flipping El in

i've tried taking the slow, patient approach with my wife.

i believe i first posted here about 13 months ago about my wife.. we've always had good communication and could talk endlessly about philosophy, neuroscience, sociology and then when i learned the ttatt, i clammed up a bit about spiritual things.

i'd always been fairly liberal, suggesting other alternative ideas, but then i told my wife about the un/ngo scandal (i ran across the guardian story doing a talk as an ms, lol!

Flipping El

@Theredeemer - thanks for sharing your personal experience. I definitely will tell my wife that I will respect her decision to stay in and won't stop her. She is a smart girl, so the hope is she'll see that I'm not evil once fully out (just gotta stop the halfway mtg attendance and token 1hr service/mo) and realize that it is BS.

@Crazyguy - that might be the last play in my book and say it before telling her I will not go to meetings any longer. It is something that both of us in the past have really been upset about the Catholic church. With the Candace Conti case and the more recent one (along with the news articles stating there's 20+ additional cases) it is enough to be upset about. I told an old friend that I was upset about the child abuse cases and he said, "so? what does that have to do with anything?" I like to keep up friendships but that one died on the spot when he launched into a tirade that "even if the work was banned because of all these cases, I would proudly continue on... blah blah blah". If my wife took a hard line, I'd be surprised, and disgusted.

@Londo - that's just it! When I read through Steve Hassan's books, I kept thinking, "hmmm, that's close but won't work". When you lose ALL your family and friends, it's too much! That's why all the 20 - 40 year old couples that have half a brain don't really do everything by the book. They are all, "well, you gotta live a little" ie. go to bars, parties, drink too much, flirt, listen to explicit music, get tattoos & *still* take selfies in front of public witnessing carts. My favorite is when they "like" explicit booty pics on Instagram in between #picturesfromservice hashtag pics... they don't know that their history is public! - I used to think people like this were weak and wouldn't last in the org... now I think, "how else are they going to cope?" and now I know it's the only way to last in the org... otherwise, you're insane!

My wife is a 4th gen witness. Had pioneered out of school and after we got married. Anointed, hard-ass, great-grandmother & grandfather who abandoned their kids to serve as COs (really! I kid you not!) and extended family at the highest levels of NY Bethel (meeting them at Bethel while in was a tad intimidating hahahaha) with invites to the Annual Meeting to the fam and special events / visits, etc. How do you escape the reality that your family has built for you? Everyone has sacrificed *everything* for the organization, so you do too! After all it's GOD'S organization! No silver bullet for that indeed!

42

Ongoing frustration with wife

by Flipping El in

i've tried taking the slow, patient approach with my wife.

i believe i first posted here about 13 months ago about my wife.. we've always had good communication and could talk endlessly about philosophy, neuroscience, sociology and then when i learned the ttatt, i clammed up a bit about spiritual things.

i'd always been fairly liberal, suggesting other alternative ideas, but then i told my wife about the un/ngo scandal (i ran across the guardian story doing a talk as an ms, lol!

Flipping El

@Londo111 - definitely try to be careful! I've read about treading carefully, especially after reading Steve Hassan's books. After 1.5 years-ish of slowly bringing things up, it's kind of killing me inside. It's gotten to be unbearably stressful in the last couple weeks. I think with the harassing me with "what I think about things at the hall" in the last month, that was my mistake. I brought up 3 issues all at once. She just kept asking for more.

42

Ongoing frustration with wife

by Flipping El in

i've tried taking the slow, patient approach with my wife.

i believe i first posted here about 13 months ago about my wife.. we've always had good communication and could talk endlessly about philosophy, neuroscience, sociology and then when i learned the ttatt, i clammed up a bit about spiritual things.

i'd always been fairly liberal, suggesting other alternative ideas, but then i told my wife about the un/ngo scandal (i ran across the guardian story doing a talk as an ms, lol!

Flipping El

@Raton - So weird right?

I've been on a self-improvement kick over the past few months. I've upped my personal fitness, stopped drinking as much, tried to be more decisive, more social, more work done, actually doing the list of things around the house that need to get done instead of sticking my head in the sand.

Basically, instead of "I want to divorce you because you're making me unhappy", I get kick-back in the form of "You don't need me any more anyways" or "you probably need a better wife than me" or "I wish you had a better wife, I'll find one for you". Really bizarre stuff. I'm an exceptionally kind and gentle person (If I do say so myself!!) and I would never berate or harangue my wife for any lack of helping around, or lack of fitness or even personal moral choices. So, to me, it sounds like it's a cop-out. A "I don't want to change or be better or get out of the JWs, so you probably want a wife that does those things".

I hope that things with you and your wife work out - or at least, if you do end up getting divorced, that it ends as well as it can financially, emotionally and lets you see your daughter. By the way, I have had moderate success with improving non-JW things in the marriage after reading the book "No More Mr. Nice Guy". Here's the PDF as a preview (you can buy on Amazon too):

https://7chan.org/lit/src/Robert_Glover_-_No_More_Mr_Nice_Guy.pdf

It stung a bit but I can say that it's the only thing that has made the last few months bearable. It was like going from a 1/10 "I'm going to walk out the door and jump on a random train away from here" to an occassional 4 or 5/10 "oh, there's the wife I remember from years ago".

42

Ongoing frustration with wife

by Flipping El in

i've tried taking the slow, patient approach with my wife.

i believe i first posted here about 13 months ago about my wife.. we've always had good communication and could talk endlessly about philosophy, neuroscience, sociology and then when i learned the ttatt, i clammed up a bit about spiritual things.

i'd always been fairly liberal, suggesting other alternative ideas, but then i told my wife about the un/ngo scandal (i ran across the guardian story doing a talk as an ms, lol!

Flipping El

@Crazyguy - good point. You mean the scripture about "some belong to Paul, others to Apollos"? Could be a good point to address. I think I've used that in relation to how focused on the Governing Body people seemed to be while I was still "in" and an MS. It really upset me to see people in awe of a random guy that worked his way up through Bethel or the circuit work and into the Governing Body... but she didn't take kindly to that usage.

That is the real issue in general with reasoning with JWs right? If you show them something in the Bible, they say "oh, we don't take that literally" or "that doesn't *actually* mean that" or "we have a new understanding". There's a lot mental gymnastics involved in skirting around the obvious answer they should say if they were honest with themselves (or just not indoctrinated), "oh wow, I've never seen that.. at first glance, yes that does actually contradict what we teach and believe."

But. Who am I to say? I always told people in service, "I'm committed to truth, not an organization, and I'm not afraid to examine anything, if something else makes more sense let's look at that but I know what i have is the truth"... and then I *did* examine it and it wasn't the truth. Probably too much effort and heartache to be committed to truth! It kind of sucks but you can't go back!

42

Ongoing frustration with wife

by Flipping El in

i've tried taking the slow, patient approach with my wife.

i believe i first posted here about 13 months ago about my wife.. we've always had good communication and could talk endlessly about philosophy, neuroscience, sociology and then when i learned the ttatt, i clammed up a bit about spiritual things.

i'd always been fairly liberal, suggesting other alternative ideas, but then i told my wife about the un/ngo scandal (i ran across the guardian story doing a talk as an ms, lol!

Flipping El

You guys are all awesome.

Got your PM TheSearcher. Thanks!

@WingCommander - that totally makes sense. It seems like the "personal experiences" or "warnings" in the publications end up in people's heads as an operating script. The indoctrination is real.

@Theredeemer - good points. It's hard to remember sometimes that you've got to live your own life and accept responsibility for yourself and let other's do the same for themselves. The submissive attitude we're told to have, the ideas of "waiting on Jehovah", *only* taking things to pray, not being presumtuous in our speech or actions, taking the "wise course" and learning from other's not experiencing your own mistakes, etc. There are dozens and dozens and dozens of these little behavior control concepts still on auto-pilot.

I'm having an incredibly hard time just up and saying it all to my wife. I've started a journal to let the frustration go somewhere. This morning I wrote out what I'd like to say to her. Part of me just wants to print it and leave it with her while I go away so I don't have to deal with the crying, yelling and frustrating appeals to emotion "don't you believe it's the truth though? where else would we go?" blah blah.

thanks again

42

Ongoing frustration with wife

by Flipping El in

i've tried taking the slow, patient approach with my wife.

i believe i first posted here about 13 months ago about my wife.. we've always had good communication and could talk endlessly about philosophy, neuroscience, sociology and then when i learned the ttatt, i clammed up a bit about spiritual things.

i'd always been fairly liberal, suggesting other alternative ideas, but then i told my wife about the un/ngo scandal (i ran across the guardian story doing a talk as an ms, lol!

Flipping El

I've tried taking the slow, patient approach with my wife. I believe I first posted here about 13 months ago about my wife.

We've always had good communication and could talk endlessly about philosophy, neuroscience, sociology and then when I learned the TTATT, I clammed up a bit about spiritual things. I'd always been fairly liberal, suggesting other alternative ideas, but then I told my wife about the UN/NGO scandal (I ran across the Guardian story doing a talk as an MS, LOL!) and she shut down. Really badly.

She stopped going to meetings but guilted me into going. It'd always be a big "WE HAVE TO GO!" and then she couldn't go at the last minute. If I stayed, there would be big fights or silent treatment that I was ruining our marriage or our relationship with Jehovah.

I've tried doing different things like fill up our time on weekends with fun recreation or travel.

I've tried slowly brining up things or asking her questions.

She just doesn't like it. It's stressing her out and causing her health problems I think.

Recently, she's been REALLY on my case about why I'm not interested in spiritual things. I've brought up issues that are things that you can talk about JW stance vs. what the Bible says. She often says, "I don't see the issue there" or "so? Jehovah is backing Jehovah's Witnesses".

Then later she'll say "I'm kind of angry at you. I can't believe you said those things the other day.. they were upsetting to hear" (She would beg and plead with me to tell her what was on my mind about spirituality / JW issues as I said I was doing my own research).

At this point, she wants to poke at me about it every day. It seems like she wants me to make a move to just up and say "it's a cult! I'm out!" so that she'll have a reason to divorce me. She casually brings up divorce or how I'd be better without her often.

Help! Any ideas? Is this a hail mary situation? One last go at it?

35

News story re: Doris Nelson. How many involved are Witnesses?

by LogCon in

there are a number of defendants being sued by the trustee.

two are jw's from vancouver lower mainland.

this b--ch started the business in vancouver and then took it to washington.. here is the list of defendants.. lls america llc, debtor.

Flipping El

I know of many people involved in this specific investment scheme.

When the deal was being spread around, many prominent witnesses in the Vancouver, BC / Lower Mainland area were involved and encouraging others to get in on the investment. Some were honest-hearted in their intentions and thought they were "being blessed" to continue in their pioneer service. I know of one that mortgaged their house at the insistence of elders & pioneers, since it was a sure thing and it would allow them to start to pioneer.

I also know of another couple that have an extremely bad name in business (paying brothers & sisters minimum wage, etc) while owning many foreign properties. They seem to be unscathed at the moment and living well in a small town escaping their huge debt.

I was offered the deal but declined since it "sounded too good to be true". The idea was you'd get all your money back within the first 2 years in dividends and they'd continue on afterwards. For some people, it was definitely enough to live on.

While I don't have a lot of empathy for people who get involved in these schemes - the unfortunate part is many were duped into it and persuaded by "spiritually strong ones".

57

time to reboot jwn??? attn. tech49, formerlongtime elder, others.

by nowwhat? in

first of all let me start by saying who am i to judge, but... i understand jwn has completely evolved over the years, but what i would like to see a forum that has current members and former jw's that still live by bible principles and respect the bible, but are not afraid to call out the watchtower on their practices and revised history.

i think quality posters as mentioned above, after venting their frustrations and experiences realize this website is taken over by athiests.

and punk kids-[ see similar post.

Flipping El

@nowwhat? - I see where you're coming from if you still consider yourself a Christian or hold some viewpoints that Jehovah's Witnesses teach. You might have the most interesting discussions on http://meletivivlon.com (if you haven't already stumbled across it)

The conversation there is tied to what can be proven from the Bible but from a skeptical point of view. It helped me to reassess some doctrinal points from the Organization and clarify lines of reasoning on things that just didn't feel right to me in the past. So it might a good mix of topics & comments that current questioning JWs, Ex-JW, etc feel comfortable with while not dipping into Atheist territory.