I had a good talk with my wife last night.
We talked about a wide variety of topics ... but what she said actually kind of surprised me.
She has been reading the bible (Living Bible) and it has been like reading an entirely different book, she says.
I had talked earlier about how she came back hard with the 607 BC stuff, and kept clinging to the WT mantra "reliable bible chronology".
This had worried me - as evidenced by some recent panicked threads on JWD.
Well, as it turns out, she wasn't as "sure of" 607 BC as she had appeared to be. She told me that once she had gotten wind that I was looking up stuff on 607 vs 587, she went and did a bunch of research on her own. She said she started getting real nervous when she wasn't finding any support for 607 in the literature - and she was sure she would find it. She said it really took a turn for the worst when she went and asked two elders about it, and they had no idea there was any discrepancy in the first place!
Basically, it seems the only reason she stuck with the "reliable bible chronology" argument was because that was ALL SHE HAD TO GO ON from the Society.
Keep in mind ... she had arrived at this conclusion without me even bringing it up. (I didn't drop the apostate-bomb until a week later.) But she only researched it on her own after seeing some of the history books I had been checking out from the library and where I was making notes.
Another point she brought out: She said yesterday at the WT study she noticed how the article talked about "all the wonderful things we have being JWs." She was disappointed that there was just one brief sentence about Jesus, and then a full paragraph taking up half the page talking about the factories, printing facilities, WT, Awake, books, assemblies, kingdom halls, etc.
She said it seemed so obvious to her now.
We talked some more about how works-oriented the Society is, and how we feel real bad for so many families in our hall - families just doing everything they can to hold it together. Some of our dear friends are in that boat, and it is just so sad they work their asses off to take care of their family and are then guilted into going to meetings by family - only to sit there and listen to how scummy they are because they are not regular enough in the ministry or meeting attendance.
We spent some time on guilt, and why people seem to be attracted to cults like JWs, Mormons, etc. She had parents that were the epitome of the Governing Body distilled into mother and (step)father.
Legalistic. Double-tongued. Guilt-inducing. Faultfinding. That was her parents.
My wife says she can see why they were so attracted to being JWs. Her stepdad and mom both had abusive, alcoholic parents. My wife is fascinated with psych stuff and healing abusive relationships, so she has a lot of knowledge to draw from.
We then talked some more about how to teach our girls good morals and stuff. I told her at this point I have no problem teaching them morals from the bible, though even many atheists have really good morals - so I can't be sure Christians have the monopoly on that. But I agreed the bible is a good starting point as long as we can keep organized religious crap out of it.
I thanked her deeply for listening - especially last week when I first told her - and that I thought it had actually gone better than I thought - and I had been prepared to accept the worst.
She said she knew something was up with me and she had an idea it was non-JW related - possibly apostate. She felt like she could either (a) run to the elders and tell them I was a wackjob (yes, she said wackjob) and keep her family and support system in place, or (b) she could listen to what I have to say first, because she knew I was a reasonable guy.
But ... she said the first choice wasn't really an option, because she was so disturbed by the 607 BC stuff that she felt she wouldn't be able to get THAT out of her head. That really only left her with the second option.
You know, I really think my wife feels a sense of freedom being away from it. She hasn't studied for the last two meetings at all. Last night at book study she only answered questions where the answer didn't require her to spout off WT propaganda - she only answered when she could say, "According to Daniel ...". She also read a scripture.
I had to close the book study with prayer. It was strange knowing I wasn't the ONLY ONE at book study that knows how I really feel now about JWs. It was actually kind of nice.
-ithinkisee