by freeme 61 Replies latest jw experiences
First of all, suicide is not an option, and don't say that word unless you want us (JWD'rs) tracking you down and banging on your door
wheee. im scared now :-) okay, i promise that i wont do it :P its scary to me too. but, yes, i played through that scenario in my mind. i hope i wont get arrested for that :P
i cited the "examine everything"-scripture. she looked angry...............WHAT?! the ministry is useless? are you kidding? do you know what you're talking about???!" she got incredibly angry and told me: "at this point i dont wanna talk with you anymore". i thought "wtf?!" but stayed calm and asked her why she is angry. no answer...........................she started to debunk my arguments saying that i dont have any clue and should shut my mouth because i study not enough and dont spend enough time in service i really cant understand how she cant see whats going on.
Hi freeme. Yes, it can be very frustrating trying to talk to a Witness and watching them go ballistic when they don't have an answer. To understand why your wife, and why others in high control groups like the Witnesses, react the way they do, you should read the following article that explains why it's so hard for anyone to see 'reason' when their beliefs are questioned:
Because beliefs are designed to enhance our ability to survive, they are biologically designed to be strongly resistant to change. To change beliefs, skeptics must address the brain's "survival" issues of meanings and implications in addition to discussing their data.
Our brain's primary purpose is to keep us alive. It certainly does more than that, but survival is always its fundamental purpose and always comes first. If we are injured to the point where our bodies only have enough energy to support consciousness or a heartbeat but not both, the brain has no problem choosing-it puts us into a coma (survival before consciousness), rather than an alert death-spiral (consciousness before survival).
Because every brain activity serves a fundamental survival purpose, the only way to accurately understand any brain function is to examine its value as a tool for survival. Even the difficulty of successfully treating such behavioral disorders as obesity and addiction can only be understood by examining their relationship to survival. Any reduction in caloric intake or in the availability of a substance to which an individual is addicted is always perceived by the brain as a threat to survival. As a result the brain powerfully defends the overeating or the substance abuse, producing the familiar lying, sneaking, denying, rationalizing, and justifying commonly exhibited by individuals suffering from such disorders.
One of the brain's primary tools for ensuring survival is our senses. Obviously, we must be able to accurately perceive danger in order to take action designed to keep us safe. In order to survive we need to be able to see the lion charging us as we emerge from our cave or hear the intruder breaking into our house in the middle of the night.
Senses alone, however, are inadequate as effective detectors of danger because they are severely limited in both range and scope. We can have direct sensory contact with only a small portion of the world at any one time. The brain considers this to be a significant problem because even normal, everyday living requires that we constantly move in and out of the range of our perceptions of the world as it is right now. Entering into territory we have not previously seen or heard puts us in the dangerous position of having no advance warning of potential dangers. If I walk into an unfamiliar building in a dangerous part of town my survival probabilities diminish because I have no way of knowing whether the roof is ready to collapse or a gunman is standing inside the doorway.
Enter beliefs. "Belief" is the name we give to the survival tool of the brain that is designed to augment and enhance the danger-identification function of our senses. Beliefs extend the range of our senses so that we can better detect danger and thus improve our chances of survival as we move into and out of unfamiliar territory. Beliefs, in essence, serve as our brain's "long-range danger detectors."
The ability of belief to extend contact with the world beyond the range of our immediate senses substantially improves our ability to survive. A caveman has a much greater ability to stay alive if he is able to maintain a belief that dangers exist in the jungle even when his sensory data indicate no immediate threat. A police officer will be substantially more safe if he or she can continue to believe that someone stopped for a traffic violation could be an armed psychopath with an impulse to kill even though they present a seemingly innocuous appearance.
Because senses and beliefs are both tools for survival and have evolved to augment one another, our brain considers them to be separate but equally important purveyors of survival information. The loss of either one endangers us. Without our senses we could not know about the world within our perceptual realm. Without our beliefs we could not know about the world outside our senses or about meanings, reasons, or causes.
This means that beliefs are designed to operate independent of sensory data. In fact, the whole survival value of beliefs is based on their ability to persist in the face of contradictory evidence. Beliefs are not supposed to change easily or simply in response to disconfirming evidence. If they did, they would be virtually useless as tools for survival. A police officer unable to believe in the possibility of a killer lurking behind a harmless appearance could easily get hurt or killed.
As far as our brain is concerned, there is absolutely no need for data and belief to agree. They have each evolved to augment and supplement one another by contacting different sections of the world............When data and belief come into conflict, the brain does not automatically give preference to data. This is why beliefs-even bad beliefs, irrational beliefs, silly beliefs, or crazy beliefs-often don't die in the face of contradictory evidence. The brain doesn't care whether or not the belief matches the data. It cares whether the belief is helpful for survival. Period. So while the scientific, rational part of our brains may think that data should supercede contradictory beliefs, on a more fundamental level of importance our brain has no such bias. It is extremely reticent to jettison its beliefs. Like an old soldier with an old gun who does not quite trust that the war is really over, the brain often refuses to surrender its weapon even though the data say it should.
Even beliefs that do not seem clearly or directly connected to survival (such as our caveman's ability to believe in potential dangers) are still closely connected to survival. This is because beliefs do not occur individually or in a vacuum. They are related to one another in a tightly interlocking system that creates the brain's fundamental view of the nature of the world. It is this system that the brain relies on in order to experience consistency, control, cohesion, and safety in the world. It must maintain this system intact in order to feel that survival is being successfully accomplished.
This means that even seemingly small, inconsequential beliefs can be as integral to the brain's experience of survival as are beliefs that are "obviously" connected to survival. Thus, trying to change any belief, no matter how small or silly it may seem, can produce ripple effects through the entire system and ultimately threaten the brain's experience of survival. This is why people are so often driven to defend even seemingly small or tangential beliefs....................[We] must always appreciate how hard it is for people to have their beliefs challenged. It is, quite literally, a threat to their brain's sense of survival. It is entirely normal for people to be defensive in such situations. The brain feels it is fighting for its life. It is unfortunate that this can produce behavior that is provocative, hostile, and even vicious, but it is understandable as well.
Gregory W. Lester, Ph.D. is a psychologist on the graduate faculty of the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, and in private practice in Houston and in Denver, Colorado.
im impressed by the huge response i receive!
THANK YOU!!!
i mean i knew it... but it feels good to hear it again: im not alone with that stuff :) so good!
***Mary***
thank you very much. thats very interesting! and it perfectly explains my wifes behaviour. she would kill me where i stand when i would mention that article (lol!), but it a helps a lot to understand her better... she really fought for her life today... and she did it always when the topic came up...
and to be honest. when i started to question my own believe i fought with myself in a similar way... im lucky... the fight inside my own brain is almost gone... in the past on one occasion in the hotelroom after DC'06 i felt like going insane of that fight. 20 year old believes vs. real evidence... and the believes had guilt and fear on their side...
to be honest my situation now is peanuts against that night...
later i cried about it alone. i really cant understand how she cant see whats going on. so ignorant.
No. Loyal. Just like you probably were not so long ago. You are attacking her beliefs. Back down.
There have been many posts on this forum from those who had opposition but who were able to get their mates out. Maybe some of these could help you.
For now, concentrate on things you do have in common. Try to go places like parks and theatres, and find common ground. Have dinner in restaurants. Talk about other things. Fade slowly.......and be patient. Things may change.
No. Loyal. Just like you probably were not so long ago. You are attacking her beliefs. Back down.
yes, youre right. even though i really tried not to attack her believes directly (and failed in the end - stupid me) but to ask question that may start her thinking. on one hand i understand her perfectly... on the other hand i cant understand her acting at all... i guess you know what i mean, do you?
For now, concentrate on things you do have in common. Try to go places like parks and theatres, and find common ground. Have dinner in restaurants. Talk about other things. Fade slowly.......and be patient. Things may change.
to be honest she came up with that divorce thing once (that is what makes me scared). she literally said to me that the love to jehovah and his organization is the most important part of our marriage. if that breaks its like a "spiritual divorce" to her... she asked me what we have in common when we dont have the same religion anymore. i told her a couple of things but she argued that all those dont count anymore then. i know that her words were spoken in anger and she loves me but it hurts incredibly. i cannot be sure like i used to be before.
we speak about that "forbidden topic" like one time per month. like everytime i cant hold it anymore. in most cases i regret it, because the time between these sessions we both suppress that topic and it feels good again.
maybe i really should stop to talk with her about it at all... its hard to hold that all in... but it doesnt help to talk with her about it either... bah :/
thank you for your reply, Quandry!
Okay, I am going to give you some information to set you free. Get Steve Hassan's books on Combatting Cult Mind Control and the second one, too. www.freedomofmind.com
There are two women trapped inside your wife's body. One is the cult personality that has been so carefully cultivated for years, and the other is the wife you fell in love with. These books, and I too, can help you learn to spot which wife you are talking to.
Having a conversation with the good Witness wife is an exercise in futility. Ever tried to have an argument with a robot? Pretty useless. You pretty well know what her "canned" answers will be before you start. No use.
BUT there's another personality yearning to break free. You might see flashes of it when she tells a joke, or passes by her favorite store. It is there when she absorbs herself in her favorite hobby or the music she listens to. Observe her facial expression and the way she talks when she is most herself. THIS is the person you want to have conversations with. Don't talk too much about the Watchtower materials, ask what she thinks and feels.
For example, I bundled my JW hubby off to his meeting tonight. In every way, he looks like the perfect Witness brother. Except for his tie. Tonight, he wears his Florida Marlins tie. A little flash of my husband's natural personality shines through. So I tell him how wonderful he looks in that tie, and I ask him never to change. He grins. For a few moments longer, I have my real husband at my side. These periods of his natural personality last longer and longer now, since I have learned how to encourage him and how to extend his time outside of cult thinking.
Oh, yes. When you can't hold it in any more, talk about it here.
She is scared she is losing you. This is a natural feeling. Keep telling her you love her no matter what.
Sorry to see you suffer through this, freeme.
Everything will probably work out fine in the end. Continue to be good to her. That's always the right thing to do.
However, some marriages can't survive this. Every situation is unique.
I really wish you the best. Know that you're not alone.
Nice work, Mary!
I'm sorry you had a bad day. Obviously your wife is not ready to deal with these issues. My suggestion is to let it be. You say yours is a good marrige, focus on that. Be a nice guy and a good husband, give her no reason to complain. Someday, the Society will do or say something that does not sit well with your wife. Be there for her when that happens. Until then, be sweet, be happy.
changeling
