Note: I posted an update to this initial post here: http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/9/96648/1652438/post.ashx#1652438
Well, it is officially "ON". Last night I went through a decent-sized portion of my research with my wife.
It started because that morning she said she had enough with my lack of spiritual leadership and lack of communication with her.
It made for a tense day, and after we had the book study at our house and everyone left she went to bed. I asked her if she wanted to talk. She said she was worn out. So I told her goodnight and that I loved her and sat out on the couch. A few minutes later she came out and said "Let's talk".
She began crying and telling me how she is worn out leading the family spiritually, that I take no initiative and the kids only get out in field service when she takes them out. I never do family study and my meeting attendance is sporadic, and I seem to have an underlying "don't care" or "don't get close to anybody" sort of attitude with people in the congregation and she is shocked that I totally do not care that we haven't checked out congregations in North Carolina (which is where we want to move).
At that point I wanted to cry myself. I told her that I feel very bad about that and I do desire to lead the family spiritually. I told her that while I am not BLAMING my general "keep everyone at arm's length" attitude on anyone - I do feel it has some specific links to the family environment I grew up in (click here for an old entry I wrote of my early JW years). I'm not making excuses for it but I told her I do realize that my general communication really needs some work.
There was some more discussion about this dancing around the "real" issue. I am not sure if she was trying to steer me to the real issue as well, but she said, "I feel like if we move to North Carolina you will never go to a meeting again, and at the same time I will have completely lost my support network that I have where we live now."
I was hoping to avoid it for another night ... but when she said that I KNEW what I had to do.
(I have practiced this initial statement dozens of times in anticipation of this)
So I started :
"Last year when you were at your brother's wedding and I was home by myself, (about October 2004) I started to think about our upcoming 10-year wedding anniversary. I realized at that moment it was sort of a bittersweet milestone. I mean, it's great it was 10-years, but on the other hand I realize that my lack of communication has caused many problems for our marriage. I AM AWARE it is me that is lacking in that department. You are very good at communication.
"So I started to REALLY think what is at the ROOT of my problem. What IS IT that is bothering me? What is hindering me?"
I took a deep breath. Paused for a sec, and said,
"I realized when I got right down to it I have had some SERIOUS doubts about being a Witness. I realized that if our next ten years weren't gonna suck like our last ten years I NEEDED TO CLEAR THESE DOUBTS FROM MY MIND. I told myself that if it IS THE TRUTH, then we should move forward 100%. If it is NOT, then I would need to face those facts as well."
At that point she knew what was coming. The look of resignation on my wife's face got me very nervous. It was a look that essentially said, "Well, there you go. That's it. You're an apostate."
At that point it was hard to segue into the real meat of the discussion, which would be the evidence I have this is not "the Truth".
She told me she thought something was up, and that she felt deceived. She felt that I was putting all the burden on her to basically decide the fate of the family. I assured her I am not going anywhere.
We discussed the Chronology stuff again that she had actually defended pretty well the WT's position. I explained a few more things about it and said that I never did before but I WILL GO and find what the Watchtower calls "Pivotal dates" in the years of other Kings in the Neo-Babylonian era. After that I changed subjects.
I was able to walk her through the Society claims the "invisible return of Christ" in 1914 was prophesied for 30 years prior to 1914. After the first quote I had (I have the actual SCANS from the WT Reprints CD) she asked where I got them. I told her STOOPS MFG and others sell these CDs of WT reprints and a friend gave me a copy. The first quote wasn't THAT concrete ... but the next few were. WT's from 1892 stating Jesus returned invisibly in 1874 and that ARMAGEDDON - the FINISH - was coming in 1914.
I asked her why the Society would give the impression they PREDICTED a date they didn't predict. Oftentimes she would try to move this into a discussion of 1914 (or whatever doctrine we discussed ... there were many). I would say, the issue for me is NOT whether or not it is a momentous year at this point. The issue is the Society being deceptive about predicting 1914.
She said that she was sure there was more to it. I said it's quite simple. Here is what the Society has said ... even in 1998. But HERE is what they ACTUALLY said.
Then the conversation sort of segued into predictions in general, and I mentioned how the Society has predicted Armageddon in 1914, 1918, 1925, 1941, 1975, 2000, etc.
She said, "I thought it wasn't true that they predicted 1941. That was just a rumor started by opposers."
So I pulled out a scan of the 1941 WT that has the actual quote regarding the "remaining few months" before Armageddon. She looked at that page for probably 5 minutes. Read the whole article to make sure it wasn't out of context.
Then she moved on to 1975 and said the Society never really SAID 1975. I said they pretty much said EVERYTHING BUT 1975 was the date. She said that was based on the old definition of "generation". I pointed out that the Society said in on Awake magazine that their chronology might not be COMPLETELY accurate - so it may be only a matter of a few months or years at the most. I pointed out 30 years is a helluva a lot more than a "few".
I then began to tell her about the generation change and how that REALLY affected me. I told her I remember thinking at that WT Study in 1995 (which, coincidentally, was our first year of marriage) to myself "Wow. I'm gonna DIE in this system of things." I also told her how I suddenly realized the tremendous power the Society has and that if they can alter something this sacred, they can pretty much alter anything.
She asked me if I really KNEW the meaning of Generation ... that the end could still be close. I told her yes I did, and that the WT technically says, "Just because WE CHANGED our definition doesn't mean Jehovah has changed HIS timetable." I told her I thought that was a cop-out. I told her there was a Time Magazine article and many other news articles that pointed to how the Society was gonna HAVE to change this Generation teaching because those people are getting pretty old. And sure enough ... what happened in 1995? They changed it!
I then talked with her briefly about an older guy in our hall:
the promise the Society made in Jehovah's name that "Millions Now Living Will Never Die", but then seeing the people that taught you that phrase die - it causes a little crisis in the mind. So, you then hang onto the supposed fact that the "generation" that saw the changes happen in 1914 (another promise the Society made in Jehovah's name) keeps you going, only to have THAT then taken away in 1995 with the new understanding of a generation. In these people's minds it starts to make sense that they've been "had" but they CANNOT leave for fear of losing their whole families that still believe it completely. The guy IS a whackjob ...but I can empathize with the poor guy.
I explained to her that the Society says they are not prophets, but in fact they often wear the prophets mantle. They call themselves the greater ezekial, greater isaiah, and actually have uttered prophecies in JEHOVAH's NAME. I read to her the quote from the Awake! that was in almost every Awake for years prior to 1995 generation change. a PROMISE FROM JEHOVAH that everything would be fulfilled before that generation passed away.
She said, "But that was with the OLD understanding of generation." I said this is true, but look, the said it IN JEHOVAH's name. I then quoted the scripture about if someone promises something IN MY NAME and it doesn't happen, you will know they are a false prophets.
Interspersed between these things were comments quite often about "How are we going to raise our two daughters with morals if we aren't in the truth? We need some sort of touchstone." I would point out that the scriptures do NOT point to an organization. There is nowhere in the scriptures that say the touchstone would be an organization of men. The scriptures say it was JESUS that would be our touchstone. And in the time of the end scriptures don't say that there would be an ORGANIZATION that would help people. It says the HOLY SPIRIT would be the helper.
There were many times we came back to the organization vs. Jesus thing and how it just isn't scriptural. She also used the "Jehovah has always had an organization" thing. I refuted that with most of the logic from scripture and presented it in ways I have learned from this board and others.
I also showed her the actual scans of books quoted from by the Trinity brochure where the Society blatantly misquotes. I showed her where they quote the Ante-Nicene fathers regarding Jesus' deity. These things (like the 1914 quotes) seemed to make a decent impact on her. She had no explanation for them. Instead she would say, "So I guess you now believe the TRINITY?" I said it didn't really matter what I believed at this moment - the point once again is the DECEPTION in the publications. Whether or not the trinity is true or not at this point is not the issue - the issue is honesty in their quotes of secular publications and the early church fathers. I read her actual quotes on Jesus deity from the early church fathers.
There is alot more we talked about, and I may add sticking points later. Basically it came down to this at the end:
She said, "So basically, you are pushing all this on me now. It is MY responsibility to determine the fate of our family. I think that is unfair and a cop-out on your part. Somehow I am supposed to just believe that you are going to be a good father and husband as a non-JW and leave everything I have ever known to move 1000 miles away. And all I have to base this on is your sad record of communication for the past 10 years."
I told her I fell VERY bad about that and if I could do it over again I would. I told her that I felt like I was reaping what I have sown by not communicating with her well for the past ten years. I told her that I realized if I HAD been communicating well with her I probably would have been able to tell her stuff AS I FOUND IT - but unfortunately I sucked at communication so I had to just secretly collect information. I told her that because my communication sucked I did not want to risk out marriage unless I was 100% sure.
My wife said, "So it sounds like you have made your choice."
I said, "Well, it would appear so, but I am always open to someone explaining to me why the Society would lie about these topics like predicting 1914, the Trinity and such. If these topics are such slam-dunk cases then why do they resort to misrepresenting and lying about their history and other publications?'
She said, "And now I'm not supposed to talk to anyone about this (i.e. elders and stuff) and come up with this decision on my own? So you won't be labeled an apostate?"
I said I thought it would be better for all of us if we did that instead of me getting that label before you are able to make a decision. I told her I did not expect her to make a decision that night, or even this week, or month, or YEAR if necessary. I told her it has taken me almost a year to get to this point. I admitted to her that I can totally understand why she feels I have been deceptive, and that I am sorry if she feels that way, but I have wrestled with that issue for months - many sleepless nights up crying - knowing that I am reaping what I have sown. I apologized for that, and acknowledged that sometimes I wish I don't know what I now know.
I told her I will respect whatever it is she decides to do. But I also told her I am not going anywhere. That I do not plan on leaving her or our daughters. This brought us back to the discussion of where to find guidance for our children.
All in all there was no yelling. There was alot of crying on both sides (Surprisingly not as much from me as I had expected). Sometimes I would get a little "passionate" with my argument and would almost sound sarcastic - but I would stop myself and apologize and explain to her that when I read these misquotes and lies it really makes me angry.
My wife finally got up at 1am (we had been talking since 9pm the previous night) and said, "This all just feels like a bad dream" and went to bed.
This morning she got up for a moment and then went back to bed. I took our oldest daughter to school, came back, packed my stuff and went to work. I am heading home early though.
(QUESTIONS)
- I am open for suggestions on how to show my wife lots of love and attention without it seeming staged.
- Any pointers on dealing with the aftermath?
Thanks all for your help. Without this board and others I would not have been able to make the stand as convincingly as I was!
-ithinkisee