"Don't you want our kids to have what we had?"

schnell

My wife just asked me this. My answer, in no uncertain terms, is no.

We both grew up in the dub religion. We both grew up pretty happy. She in particular is close with her JW family. They call and talk every single day, where I go days without ever talking with my family. I am sure that that's really it.

She has so far refused to watch anything or read anything about the organization's faults. So far. She does see the logic in doing so, but she's resistant.

I have assured her that this is public information. Public information is not my fault, or her fault. She isn't doing anything wrong by educating herself.

I have also told her that we do not even live by JW standards. We don't get our morals from the Watchtower. Both of us cuss, watch movies and shows that Tony Morris wouldn't appreciate (or maybe he would privately, who knows), and we both take what we learn at the meetings and filter them to our own personal standards. Because hey, we like to think for ourselves, yeah?

We do want to have kids. And we *do* know a pedophile in our congregation, a young man with extreme ADHD who escaped a conviction several years ago and thus is not a registered sex offender. He is known to the elders. I told her that I knew another pedo in another congregation. And I know exactly the video to show her a glimpse of the MAGNITUDE of this problem with a compilation of material...

https://youtu.be/ULsWB2AvxVc

Hell no, I don't want my kids there. But will she watch this? Not yet. Not yet she won't.

I just, I don't get it.

konceptual99

I am in a very similar boat. Only yesterday I used the nonsense spouted in the public talk about 1.9 billion hours, 260k baptised, 9 mill bible studies to try and reiterate to my wife what a joke this is. I reminded her that this equates to 7300 hours spent in the ministry to get one person in. I compared the 8 million witnesses to just 9 million studies - just over 1 per publisher. I explained to her that the net gain last year was just 18k.

I tried use the fact that in just about 10 years or even less Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other web sites had gone from nothing to monsters of the internet with a ubiquitous global reach. I asked her why the holy spirit was not acting on the GB to give them similar success? I suggested that the work was simply not about the urgent preaching of a life saving message, as proposed by the public speaker, but rather a complete waste of time. How is standing by carts for hours on end talking to nobody manifesting a sense of urgency? How is the inability of the GB to reach billions of people in many lands a global preaching work? How is 260k new ones in one year anywhere near enough to meet the needs of the net 120k people added every day to the world population?

Her answer? Perhaps Jehovah wants us simply to be out there, being busy. Perhaps this is how he wants the preaching done. I can't believe the irony of her own words were so lost on her. She's not stupid, just blind, the same as I was for years. She won't see until she wants to, if ever.

The Searcher

@ schnell - being the optimist, it sounds as if your wife is not too far away from fully waking up.

Her cuddly phrase, "the organization's faults" is used by J.W.'s to show that their org is imperfect, in order to mitigate any serious accusations against them.

A better phrase to use would be "critical flaws" - in order to highlight that many of the org's teachings and practices are not un-scriptural, but anti-scriptural.

Anything not mentioned in scriptures is by definition un-scriptural, (e.g. hamsters) but teachings & practices which pervert scriptures are anti-scriptural, and by extension, anti-Christ.

If any J.W. accuses me in future of being "negative" about the org, I'll reply that I'm pointing out critical flaws - which we are not allowed to discuss with anyone!

Room 215

Schnell,

It may comfort you to know there are quite a few nominal JWs such as you and your wife: raised by relatively liberal parents with strong family ties, but who on a personal level have come to terms with the restrictive lifestyle of the organization. They view themselves as fundamentally loyal but rather "balanced" in their worldview.

pale.emperor

My sister said a similar thing before she cut me off entirely. "I want my kids to marry people who have high morals and no STDs" of course there's only the JW's that are moral and STD free isnt there?

konceptual99

You are correct Room 215 in that there are indeed many liberally minded JWs - I was one. The problem is that all the time these ones mitigate for the organisation's faults and allow the cognitive dissonance to work against their better judgement they are locked into the basic control mechanisms that prevent one from becoming mentally free.

It's almost worse for me that my wife remains in this state as if she were an uber loyal fundamentalist as I could feel less aggrieved at what is essentially wilful ignorance. She is quite capable of grasping the issues but cannot get over the CD. I can't blame her as she is as much of a victim of circumstance as I was but it actually requires even more CD when you have a more "balanced" worldview since there is less of what is normal to most people that you outright reject.

scratchme1010

schnell, it's a process of acceptance. Facing the truth about the JWs implies that her life decisions, her family structure, her believe and support system is based on nonsense. That's not an easy thing to accept. It's a process.

Also, some people like the social aspect of it more than the actual reality. Sad but true.

schnell

@scratchme1010, yeah it also means that certain older brothers and sisters she admires, and who admire her, do not actually have the truth. That's hard to take.

I also think she's close to waking up, but I don't want it to be too late before she does, and I certainly don't want to force it.

life is to short

It is so frustrating but they will only wake up when they want to you just cannot force them no matter what. It is just so maddening to see lives wasted like this and children being hurt. Life really is too short.

JWdaughter

I met this older lady once who was giving me grief for allowing my 7 year old to sit on a toilet seat. Turns out her 2 granddaughters had used a dirty bathroom once and later, three of them were found to have 'crabs' (pubic lice). Obviously, the two who caught it from the public toilet seat(her presumption) gave it to the third (who had apparently never met up with a bathroom at the rest stop). So, she had 3 granddaughters who had crabs and assumed that they got it from a toilet seat. . . because to think anything else-even the obvious! was unthinkable. They had probably all been molested by a pedophile in the family or friend circle. But, rather than even thinking of the obvious, she decided it was the toilet seat that they didn't hover over years ago and then passed on to their little sister.

Jehovah's witnesses will always assume that the crazy outcomes in their WT worldview comes from the world without it ever occurring to them that it is right there, in their homes, in their halls, taught to them religiously at conventions and in the insidious, cheap little booklets lurking in their bags.

"Don't you want our kids to have what we had?"

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