" UN-BELIEVER "
is the cult title for a non-JW spouse. It is emotionally destructive.
That raw descriptor referred to my husband and though I would not call him that to his face, he heard himself called that from the platform at a Circuit Assembly in Iowa where my newly-baptized 14 year-old daughter gave one of those 3-minute "experiences". Being back in Arkansas at the time,I was unable to attend.
You know the kind of part it was--It was intended to be an inspirational example of the adversity young witnesses triumph over in "divided households(tm)" to serve Jehovah.
My poor husband. He had gone to Fort Dodge on the week-end to support this single one of all his children who had continued going to meetings with me in spite of the household trend toward resistence. Sat through the interminable boredom of it all and was hit with this.
I heard about it immediately. His anger was easier to deal with than the pain. And this man was pained.
In spite of my own efforts to mitigate the harshest aspects of the Armegeddon teaching of the Society both in my home and without, he told me that the full implications of JW theology was not lost on him. He could see the poison and he could feel it.
These years out I can say he was right. Dead right
I feel for you, Jgnat. To get that mindset out, root and bough, is hard. And it does affect feelings between spouses--unless you are in a strictly utilitarian arrangement like roommates sharing rent.
The Society talks of divided households? They use a scripture to justify what they do, but they are not kind and do not care about the wrongs they commit.
The family had a rough go through the Witnesses. (He and I may have had a rough go anyway). But, honestly, most the time when he was angry, he was really just hurt, badly hurt. Maybe he felt like in a way, he --not I--was the one kissing a corpse.
Maeve