Farewell

by EdenOne 104 Replies latest jw experiences

  • truthseeker100
  • suavojr
    suavojr
    Another one bites the dust! I will miss your comments Eden, but worry about living your real life. What happens on this forum should not affect your personal life and if you feel it is better for you to leave, then I wish you the best of luck. As for Viviane... that poster is just another among thousands. We can surely move her to the oblivion and move on!
  • jhine
    jhine

    What Marvin said ,

    Jan.

  • Xanthippe
    Xanthippe
    I was amazed at your story of getting your dear wife mentally out of the cult Eden. How you did it and suggestions for others in the same position would be of great benefit to many people coming here for help. In life we always come across a few people with enormous egos but I find for the most part it's better to avoid them. I hope you decide to stay but have a great life anyway, whatever you decide.
  • sir82
    sir82

    I've never really understood how people allow themselves to get so all het up because an anonymous stranger said something they didn't like on an internet forum.

    Total weirdness.

    Anyway, if you can't handle internet forums without getting all wacked-out, perhaps it is best to do as you say, for your own well-being.

  • WingCommander
    WingCommander
    No Edenone! Noooooooooo! Come back! I'll really miss you.
  • LV101
    LV101
    What your wife and Marvin said.
  • Simon
    Simon
    I need to make this one post because there are some things that need to be clarified.

    Me too

    1) Please don’t make this thread a “I hate Vivian” thread

    Surely you should know that making a big public issue and a farewell post would result in that happening? If you didn't want it to be that then you should have just said "I've decided it's time for me to move on"

    2) I never called for Vivian to be banned, that’s a preposterous claim. I asked Simon to do something about it, to not condone the bully, name-calling behavior, but never suggested what he should do about it. It’s his home, it’s not my place to tell him what he should or should not do.

    More than that - I asked you several times what you were looking for and what you expected. I like to get an idea if people are being reasonable or not or what is going to make them happy (if it's something out of the question then I can stop right there). You said nothing other than "something" but it seems really that nothing was going to satisfy you other than something dramatic and very public. I don't think two posters having an argument on a topic warrants any banning and I prefer to err on the side of letting people try and sort things out. Can you imaging what (lack of) discussions we'd have if I clamped down on every statement to make sure it was upbuilding?

    Again, even if I do something I don't think it's always appropriate to tell other people. So were you ever going to be happy? Were you firing off a complaint I couldn't satisfy?

    3) This was a personal beef between me and Vivian, and I only made it public because she publicly accused me of a serious thing, and I felt that public explanation had to be given for my decision to leave. I’m not trying to accrete a mob of Vivian haters.

    A personal beef ... but you wanted me involved in it?

    As I said to you, what do you want ... I can't strangle an apology out of someone. If there is a difference of opinion then the best we can do is give our side of things and trust people to see the truth (and what do we care of the opinions of people who can't?)

    4) I never demanded an apology. Actually it was Vivian that first publicly demanded an apology from me. I asked for a retraction of the ridiculous public accusation of calling me a liar and a hypocrite.

    So again, what did you want? (but IMO a retraction is equivalent to an apology in this case)

    5) By leaving, I would like to raise awareness about the type of behavior, not the person in question.

    I think you've now made it about the person even if that wasn't your intent.

    6) Simon, when you’re in your position, you can’t please everyone everytime. Criticism comes with the territory, and if I mildly criticized you, at least I was loyal when I did it.

    I appreciate that. I'm trying to explain things from my position and why you came away disappointed. It's like when you go into a store with a complaint - if you have a clear and reasonable idea of how they can solve your issue then you will be more likely to have a successful outcome. People who stand at customer service making wild claims or demands or being unclear or dissatisfied no matter what make it impossible or at least very difficult for the store to make them happy.

    8) In my offline life I had to deal with a Vivian type of bully stalker, for years, who created arguments with me from thin air just for the sake of winning arguments, and who did real damage to my professional life by fabricating stories about me (including forging documents) and spreading them around my professional netwok.

    You are calling Vivian names & making it personal when you said that isn't what you wanted to do.

    It sounds like her approach struck a nerve possibly because of other life events you have experienced.

    While I can understand and empathize with that, isn't there a case you may be "projecting" a little? Disliking someone because their approach reminds you of someone else who did you wrong may make you read other things into their comments than what they are actually saying and ultimately overreact.

    9) To have one’s honorability attacked in public is no petty “kindergarden” thing. Not in my culture. Even if that attack is made on an online forum just to bring out an emotional response and test the other person's limits. If that's the case, then it's just a plain stupid thing to do.

    In the grand scheme of things, whether someone said something or not on a topic and the semantic meaning of a word is not hugely serious because it's easy to set straight - you just quote the thing they said and the part where they claim they didn't say it. They can go deny it till the cows come home but everyone can see the truth. Demanding an apology / retraction is rarely successful - you just have to move on and trust the people who's opinions you care about.

    10) I was moved by the support you gave me. Thank you. Even Mrs. Eden says I’m silly to leave, that it’s beneath me to allow this to bother me. Go figure.

    I've found that my wife is usually right whenever we disagree about how I should handle something. And by 'usually' I really mean 'always'. People accuse women of being emotional / hormonal but testosterone is worse than estrogen. It sometimes makes us stubborn and unable to let go of things. And by 'sometimes' I mean 'always', LOL

    It's a shame that some have seen this as an opportunity to insult Viviane - it's rarely going to make things easier to sort out.and for situations to calm down. It just escalates things to the point that people become entrenched and unable to walk things back even if they later feel they should.

    Lets just chill people - we're a community of damaged people facing emotional challenges and then discussing religion and politics (what can possibly go wrong?).

    Take a deep breath and remember, it's nearly the weekend.

  • slimboyfat
    slimboyfat
    sir82
    I've never really understood how people allow themselves to get so all het up because an anonymous stranger said something they didn't like on an internet forum.
    Total weirdness.
    Anyway, if you can't handle internet forums without getting all wacked-out, perhaps it is best to do as you say, for your own well-being.

    This is very true. For example sir82 mocked me during the great forum disruption of c. 2008. But I forgave him and now I've forgotten all about it. Don't even remember it now. At all.

  • The Rebel
    The Rebel

    Slimboyfat, somehow it seems very fitting that you appeared on this " farewell" thread.

    The Rebel.

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