My Wife Got Baptized into the Organization Yesterday

by garyneal 67 Replies latest members private

• 

  garyneal

  flipper:

  Thanks for your kind words of support. Yeah, I do plan to keep my daughter busy in 'worldly' activities, I don't care what my wife says. She can try to say that life is not all just fun and games all she wants to but she keeps forgetting that childhood is suppose to be about having fun. After all, it is called CHILDHOOD.

  Nathan:

  Yeah, I am still holding out hope that she will one day be an EX-Jehovah's Witness. There are certain aspects of her personality that I believe will not go well with the new set of restrictions that she will have to endure. She's been able to do pretty much what she wanted for the last seven years. There's no way I can believe that she will be happy restricting her life to the extent that they may want for her. I'm sure she can 'hide behind my headship' for some things but I cannot imagine that this will be good for her sanity over the long haul.

  Right now, she is being totally love bombed. I am hoping that this will pass very quickly.

  yknot:

  Thank you for your support. I think I can get my wife to do Bible readings but I am not sure about WT studies as I think she feels that I will naturally be inclined to find fault with them. I will try to get her to think though and hopefully keep deprogramming her.

  Thanks Mary and Mickey Mouse. What do you mean by "Time is on my side?"

  cantleave:

  I will be working hard to counterbalance the influence of the religion on my daughter. Right now, the love bombing is in high gear for my wife. I hope it subsides quickly.

  Black Sheep:

  Thanks, and I will continue to train her how to think.
• 

  garyneal

  cameo:

  I don't know at this point. But I cannot worry too much about what will possibly happen. All I will do is ask my wife, "Have I become an enemy for speaking the truth?" if it should ever get to that point. Of course she will try to say that what I say is not true but when I ask her to prove it, she cannot. In the meantime, I will just treat her like a person and try not to argue doctrine or religion too much. If the elders try to interfere too much with my relationship with my daughter, I may seek legal council.

  I'm already laying down the ground rules and will continue to remind her of them. As far as the elder's interfering with my family, I am not sure how I can stop it without causing rifts in my household. If my marraige falls apart over this, it falls apart but I will continue to fight the good fight.
• 

  garyneal

  OUTLAW: Yeah, I just hope it does not become hell for me either.

  willyloman: Hmmm, something to consider. Thanks.

  moshe: So do I. On a positive note, after I left with my daughter today from the assembly at lunch time, we found this very nice park where she can play at and had a grand time. In the words of my mother-in-law, "One little monkey isn't going to stop my show."

  OTWO: Yeah, I am hoping for this too. I'm sure the love bombing isn't going to totally fade just yet but there are some things that are working against her. She's in college and must graduate by 2012 or else her grant money stops and she has to pay for tuition out of pocket. I told her that since I did not want to put us in any more debt, I would probably not continue going to the college I am attending and may seek another alternative that is cheaper and works better with my employer's tuition reimbursement. She has a lot on her plate in regards to family time, school, her job, and of course her 'spiritual goals.' I don't know how she is going to juggle all of that but she can't quit school or else she will be required to pay back all of the grant money she's taken so far (thousands of dollars worth).

  BabaYaga: Has the love bombing on your niece stopped yet?
• 

  jehovahsheep

  just be patient gary.the pink cloud will wear off-and then you can be her support system.
• 

  dissed

  Well Gary Neal, as a former Elder, this is how I would be approaching you. Maybe this can help you develope a stratagy.

  My goal was never to convert or preach to the unbeliever, just to make friends. My purpose was to support the JW wife in promoting peace in the family, and to make her life easier to do her duties in the congregation and help with her children.

  Sincere befriending, seeing as you have made your feelings known to others already, is what you might expect. I found if the unbelieving husband felt he could trust the JW's better, he would be more lenient in letting his wife be more active in congregation activities and also letting his wife study with the kids, and let them go to meetings, assemblies, etc...

  It worked very well. Some of these unbelievers became good friends. And funny, some of them I felt sorry for, because the wives could sometimes be very unreasonable.

  As for you and your wife, you two will have to decide together how best to raise your child. I'm not sure what to mention to you about this, because my role in the past was always to help the JW stay in and strong in the religion. I just wanted to share how I approached the situation. Not all Elders will be advising your wife to confront you, to stand up, take a stand and be persecuted. Some will try this approach.
• 

  garyneal

  dissed:

  And funny, some of them I felt sorry for, because the wives could sometimes be very unreasonable.

  Yeah, my wife can certainly be this way from time to time. In years past, this would be the one reason why I would not want to be a witness. I will admit, one of the elders is very nice. Never-the-less, I will not permit my wife to do a 'Bible study' with my daughter without my being involved. It is important that she sees other ways of interpreting it too. I will present this as an opportunity for family Bible study and I may insist that other literature (outside of the WT) be presented.

  jehovahsheep: Thanks, that is the plan and I hope it works out.
• 

  Blue Grass

  I would hate to be in your shoes Gary. I hate to say this but with your wife being a Witness and you being an opposer to her faith your marriage is now officially f*&ked. A few years from now one of two things will happen. Either she will discover the truth about JWs and leave them, or she will be influenced by elders and pioneers sisters and leave you. A house divided among itself cannot stand. I wish you the best.
• 

  Open mind
• 

  GLTirebiter

  Gary, sorry to hear about it. I know you mentioned it was coming, but nothing compares to the reality of it actually happening. Do try to be as loving and reasonable as you can in these decidedly unreasonable circumstances.

  I recall you said before that you're going to your own church. My advice is to keep that up, for your daughter's sake as well as your own. When the non-JW parent is religiously inactive, the JW parent can take the attitude "You're not going to church, so why do you care what religion they're taught, after all somebody has to look after the children's spiritual upbringing". Don't give them that opening.

  Be strong, Gary, and keep being the upstanding man you've shown us you are.
• 

  life is to short

  I am so sorry.

  When I look at my marriage and all the missed times together with my husband being an elder, sometimes the only elder and my sitting in the car for hours on end waiting trying to be the good wife, it was all for nothing.

  I still really love my husband, and a huge part of the problem was me because I totally believed it was the "truth" myself so I put up with the stupidness of it. No dinners together, no date nights, no money because everything was spent to pioneer. Not ever good food to eat because we had no money left over.

  Be careful, when you said your wife is in school, she may drop out if she is pushed. I know I did many things that were stupid because of older elders wives telling me I had to do things their way. I was really young when I got married and my husband was quit a bit older than I was. I was raised in a very abusive JW home and did not know how to stand up to the strong personalities of these woman. I remember on time we had no money and my husband had it dropped on him to do the closing chairmans part. This MS's wife came up to me and said well no one is feeding the speaker so I told the speaker that your husband since he is the elder who did the closing chairmans part he will be taking you out to eat at this place. The speaker had five teenagers with him plus his wife and the place the MS's wife had picked was quite expansive. I did not know what to say, I did not understand how my husband being the closing chairman had to do with it. It was just dropped on me five minutes before we were leaving the hall. So we took the speaker to dinner and paid for it on credit. The MS gave us ten dollars to help out.

  I just have so many stories and so much hurt. I really love my husband, we have had good times together and he is a very great man but this religion really hurt our marriage. If my husband had not stood up for me with the child molesters I would have left him last year. I do not know if he truly knew that, I told him the other night that would have been a deal breaker.

  For me after 22 years of marriage and the fact that I still really love my husband I will never leave him, especially now that he is not an elder I actually have a husband now after 22 years. But when I look back on how much I put up with I so wish I had stood up when we were married just one year or two years or even five or ten years and had said this is a deal breaker. But I did not do it, I could kick myself now. I truly think my husband would have came to my side, if only I had truly stood up and said this is enough, but it took the pedophiles for me to say this is a deal breaker. Why did I wait so long?

  Do not look back with regret on your life, if your wife does something stupid call her on it. Do not let your love for her get in your way like I did. Especially with your child. You have way more at stake than I did with that little girl. Keep her safe. The kingdom hall is not safe. There are so many child molesters in the "truth" that your wife will never know about and will never believe. This one child molester in my hall was in prison for EIGHT YEARS and the elders say he is totally safe to be around kids now and he was holding them, studying with them etc until I found out he was a pedophile and threw a fit. If your wife had been in our hall he would have held you child. One elders was going around calling him a "Gentle Giant" in his public talk. Would your wife have ever thought that this gentle giant raped an eight year old.

  I am so hurt by the pedophiles running free. Also woman are looked down on in this religion it takes some of us a really long time to see it.

  Just be careful and life is too short for so much pain. Enjoy your family when you are young, do not look back with regret like I do.

  Wising the best for you.

  LITS