Who leaves first, the husband or wife? (page 3)

The Searcher

Me first - followed immediately by my wife when she reasoned on my research of the Org's doctrines & practices.

Women generally do "get it" before men do, (even if they don't know how to act on it right away). When they do leave, they are generally more inclined to be mentally awake, even without officially knowing TTATT, in my experience. Many men leave just because they are "burnt out", but still believe it all, and are at risk of going back at any time. We will likely see an over representation of men leaving first here simply because I think the personality types involved are of those that need a logical explanation for leaving, (think INTJ as mentioned above).

I think that does have to do with women having better emotional sensibilities in general, and knowing how to act on those sensibilities rationally, when the time comes. It is not about emotional vs. rational, rather about the ability to incorporate emotion into rational decision making.

My ex actually knew something was wrong before I did. I did not want to hear it. I left the organization after we split up, but then learned several years later that she woke up on her own sometime after I left.

d4g

OneEyedJoe

Ok I'm just going to say it. I cannot believe men are still churning out the bullshit about they are more rational and women are more emotional. Don't you remember where you learnt this bullshit? You think you are free of WTS teachings?

I didn't learn that from the cult...It's indisputable that men and women are wired a bit differently. I don't remember the source, but I've read a study that demonstrated that women, for instance, demonstrate a much greater ability to multitask, both physically and mentally. Men tend to think about one thing at a time, and compartmentalize a little more, which lends itself to a greater separation between reason and emotion. I'm sure there's also some cultural influence on this as well, but our brains are physically different. That's not to say that women can't reason and all men are emotionless, the difference is much more subtle than that. It's probably trivial to find two women or two men that differ to a greater extent than the average difference caused by gender, but we're talking about trends and averages here.

I also don't think anyone here was making an evaluation that one way was necessarily better in general than the other.

That said, if you have any information that contradicts that, I'd love to see it. I never like to spend any more time being wrong than I have to.

Edit:

It is not about emotional vs. rational, rather about the ability to incorporate emotion into rational decision making

This is well put and the point that I was initially trying to drive at.

Clambake

I don’t know which one leaves first but I have noticed it is much easier for a women to leave, especially if you are a convert or a second generation convert. No one cares about you if you don’t come from a prominent JW family. No public talks, no MS , no eldership. There was a lady in my cong that even skipped the memorial and no one cared.

I think men usually wake you first because they are more exposed to the uginess of it. Too most women it is just a social club.

James Mixon

The husband in most cases is not the first one to attend the KH but the first

one to leave..Most guys I knew their wives dragged them to the KH.LOL

Crazyguy

Its been my experience that woman become much more emotionally in. Therefore more woman then men join and they are less likely to leave.

OneEyedJoe

Just spit-balling here, I hope the women don't take offense at any of this...

Another factor at play could potentially be that women are more likely to leave at a younger age if they're going to leave at all. If they leave before getting married it's entirely possible that women could be leaving at a higher rate, while married men are leaving at a higher rate than married women. This would also have the effect of leaving more indoctrinated women in the cult as the ones getting married, which would lead you to expect that married men would be more likely to wake up first.

There's also (reportedly) a surplus of women in the cult, which could lead them to be more likely to look for a mate outside the cult, in which case they would likely leave but would not really have a place in this poll since their husband would never have been in the cult.

There's a ton of factors at play here.

done4good

Remember, there was also an old thread about personality types, where something like 30% of those who responded to the poll were INTJ MBTIs. That is serious over representation of a personality type that about 1-2% of the population have. That significant of a statistical correlation would suggest there might be something to the "types" of men and women we have contributing to ex-JW forums, and hence skew other polls, such as this one.

Again, in my experience many men leave, but don't really mentally escape. When adult women leave they tend to know it is not the "The Truth", even if they do little research about the subject.

d4g

OneEyedJoe

Another thought - men frequently tend to go where their wives lead in maters of religion, so its possible that when the women wake up first, the men follow more quickly afterward. This would leave fewer women looking for support online.

On the topic of the INTJs on forums, I've found that we're always drastically over-represented on online forums, so it may not be a case that we're more likely to wake up, but that we're more likely to go talk online about it.

Xanthippe

I don't remember the source, but I've read a study that demonstrated that women, for instance, demonstrate a much greater ability to multitask, both physically and mentally. Men tend to think about one thing at a time, and compartmentalize a little more, which lends itself to a greater separation between reason and emotion.

I would love to see you try this phraseology in a thread about religion versus evolution and watch some of our posters make mincemeat of it.

Who leaves first, the husband or wife?

Share this