My JW Daughter sends a Letter to us Explaining her Shunning of Me (page 3)

BizzyBee

Monseiur Fleepar,

I can only imagine the knife wounds of some of your daughter's word - to hear your child parrot back to you the propaganda that you yourself taught her must be a cruel irony. So sorry for your pain and frustration.

worldtraveller

Leave Jehovah? You actually left The Watchtower Society. If one believes the story of Jesus, you will be forgiven. No matter what you do. It's not up to a human being to make the choice. But I forget that The WTS takes away that choice.

Too bad they keep forgetting the book of John. How convenient.

I actually was going to suggest that you pretend that you are interested, but I really object to fabricating stories even if it gets results. 2 wrongs seldom make a right I guess.

The fact that she wrote back in the first place is a good start. Never forget that guilt is a powerful weapon even for the most brainwashed individuals. That might be a tool that you can use. Just be stealth about it.

Good luck to you. Bill.

bennyk

Mr. Flipper, old boy. It's a dreadful thing to see the mind-control at work. At least your daughter still expresses love for you. We'll be praying that she sees the light and that you find some peace.

"Sad Michael" writes:

I pray your daughter and any others who are faced with the choice of being loyal to Jehovah or anything or anyone will (continue to) choose Jehovah.

I agree whole-heartedly. Too bad Mr. Flipper's daughter has chosen to remain loyal to a false-prophet publishing company, instead of Jehovah, or her own father.

My wife agreed wth it then and does not agree with it now. What has changed?

Perhaps she decided to take the Watch Tower Society's advice to investigate one's religion and upon doing so came to the conclusion that it would please her heavenly Father most if she were to leave the God-dishonouring Watchtower cult. (Just a guess.)

BonaFide

I agree with those who say to focus on the nice, non-Witness stuff. She is in defense mode, and I found the same with my family.

I had to back way off.

I am reading Steve Hassans books so I can better deal with it all, and hopefully help my family and friends.

At least she sent you a letter, I would say keep it light and positive.

BF

passwordprotected

Your daughter obviously loves you, mate, I hope you can get through to her and bring her back to you.

boyzone

You're on the right track here Mr Flip. Its good that she even wrote you a letter establishing communication again. With that small crack in the door you can do much good with this.

Bonafide gives good advice on keeping it light, I'd agree with that, try and keep her in her true personality. She showed that personality at the beginning of her letter then switched to her cult personality to "witness" to you. So I'd recommend trying to get her back into that true personality as much as possible. Perhaps reminisce about some childhood funny she's forgotten or some family holiday you've all fond memories of. (as long as no cult experience is mentioned).

Then she might be reminded that you were a father to her in many wonderful and diverse ways, not just the one that taught her "the truth".

I'm doing this with my dad right now. He's a very hardcore Jdub and has a core of steel running through him whenever the "Truth" is mentioned. You can almost see the switch! Yet when I remind him of the past and his navy days or when my siblings and I were little, he switches back to the kind loving gentle man I remember as my dad. The more I keep him in this personality, the more him and I get along.

My next plan of attack is gonna be "if you wasn't a witness, what would you be doing right now?" I'll bide my time for this question, but once he's in the good personality mode, I might get away with it.

Good luck with your daughter Mr Flip, she sounds a lovely girl and definately worth every effort to get back. Please let us know how things go won't you? x

Pubsinger

I think that you shouldn't confuse getting some sort of relationship back with your daughter with getting her out of the Watchtower.

Personally I'd think that the former is a better and more realistic possibility.

She needs to feel totally unthreatened by you.

How long did it take for her to reply to your gift? I'd wait approximately the same amount of time and then write back.
I would ignore any mention of religious stuff totally and focus in a gentle, natural way on her and your relationship - not too gushing and definitely no bargaining or pleading (however mild). I would leave the letter on an open positive note, nothing that requires an immediate response, maybe just a simple "take care and catch you soon"

I would then leave it.

In a couple of months or so (if you haven't heard anything) send them something again - a card, postcard etc.
Don't acknowledge or mention anything about The Watchtower or religion at all.

If you can manage to get through half a dozen exchanges of correspondance or manage to communicate for a reasonable amount of time (it could be a year or more) without any mention of WT stuff, she may start to relax and trust you. In it is quite likely that she'll be puzzled. Eventually she will probably ask you something directly. At this point I would suggest that you totally deflect it by saying something like "You know, I really love you and respect your views and I don't want to discuss anything that will make you think otherwise" and refuse to be drawn further.

By doing this I believe that you have a chance of rebuilding - in time . . .

Rushing or having an agenda of your own could be disasterous.
I'd forget Steve Hassan's book at the mo and ask yourself which you want more - a relationship with your daughter or the possibility of her batoning down against your approaches.

Pub

allelsefails

Thanks for your post. Truly I feel for your struggle and I hope for the best in freeing your daughter's love. I do hate the idea that leaving the WTS is leaving Jehovah or loyalty to Jehovah means loyalty to WTS. This is a blatant and pervasive form of mind control. However it sounds like your daughter has enough of a brain to think for herself once she gets a little freedom. My prayers are with you. (for what that is worth)

LUKEWARM

Like your style pubsinger and seems you have received some good advice so far Mr Flipper!

Perhaps you can mention to her that you have not told her the full story about why you are not going to meetings. You didn't want to burden her with your problems...the truth is that you are feeling depressed - you have been praying to Jah about your feelings of worthlessness because you feel you are not doing enough...

Seek to engage her emotions and endeavour to meet face to face to talk...

Go slow and take baby steps as you introduce matters that you have been meditating on - matters that you have been praying to Jah about tearfully eg R. Jensen letters

http://www.ajwrb.org/watchtower/index.shtml

Your daughter will try to help you and this is when the penny might drop!

Best wishes to you

Lukewarm

boyzone

Hi Pubsinger

I think that you shouldn't confuse getting some sort of relationship back with your daughter with getting her out of the Watchtower.

In part, I agree but its the Watchtower and their policies that stand in the way of the relationship. If a relationship can be re-established without the daughter leaving the Watchtower then that is a possibility for some. But in many instances this would depend on the personalities involved and the willingness to bend the rules on the part of the witness. Only Mr Flipper knows his daughter and whether this is likely in her case.

Rushing or having an agenda of your own could be disasterous.
I'd forget Steve Hassan's book at the mo and ask yourself which you want more - a relationship with your daughter or the possibility of her batoning down against your approaches.

If I was Mr Flip, my agenda would definately be a relationship with my daughter first. This is the same with my dad. My agenda isn't to get him out of the Watchtower, thats something only he could do anyway - but the agenda is to see more and more of the gentle funny guy I knew as dad and less of the hard-hearted JW he's become.

Steve Hassan offers some sound advice. Some of it may be applicable in Mr Flips case, some of it not.

My JW Daughter sends a Letter to us Explaining her Shunning of Me

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