Many of you may recall pass postings of mine where I mentioned my plans of moving away from my current neighborhood. Mainly because my office got moved and now my commute is about one hour each way. My employer is pretty flexible so showing up on time, for now, is not an issue. I do, however, have other reasons to make sure I am available to my subordinates but also can't phantom the idea of wasting two hours of my day, every day, just driving.
Moving would also bring and end to the PTSD feelings I get when I run into my ex-friends from the old hall. They have not come around to bother me at home but I know for sure they are probably hounding my mother in law, who had not bothered with asking questions.... until recently.
This new career path has brought about a nice bump in pay as well as nice, open relationship with the top dogs at the company. The future is bright for me and, in consequence, for my family. My wife decided to also go back to work a few years back. My mother in law has never been opposed to reduce her preaching hours in order to watch our kids in the summers and after school. We don't demand that she do anything nor do we ask her for money. Every now and then she'd bring a load of groceries or pay for a nice dinner. We've taken her on vacations half way around the world. All in our dime. If I had to actually lay down the accounting, I believe she is more than well compensated for her contributions.
In a way, we are the only choice that she's got and she somewhat knows it. Her JW son lives mere blocks away from us yet there is a much better chance that he'd see her in meetings than showing up around our house. This has little to do with our spiritual state. He's always been that way. Mother in law is diabetic and losing her eye sight rapidly. She not only has regular doctors visits to attend, but also needs to be watched because she does not take care of herself. My wife has gotten pretty good at analyzing her surroundings and knowing when she has been misbehaving. In the others hand, her son's idea of taking care of mom consists on taking her out once a month, from sun up to sun down and raid every restaurant and movie concession stand for all the wrong foods. It is up to my wife afterwards, to make sure she recovers from that.
Going back to our moving plans, we found this very nice development that just started no more than two years ago. If features very nice homes with all levels of schooling within walking distance, including a Texas A&M campus. With a 14 year old getting ready to make a college choice in the next couple of years, is the perfect place to raise a family and it puts me a mere 20 min away from work.
Like everything in nice, is costs a pretty penny and there are trade off. The builder requires several thousand dollars on deposit in order to begin construction of the home and, if your mortgage is approved, the deposit is credited to your account but it is not refundable is you decided to walk away from the deal.
This long story bring me to the hard place. After much deliberating and working on a relocation package with my employer, I am ready to tie the knot. I have a meeting scheduled with the builder to sign off this Friday. If I sign, this would be a point of no return since I am pretty sure I will qualify for the loan. But that is not the hard place.
The hard place is my mother in law, whom had hesitated for a while as to whether she will be moving with us or not. Yesterday my wife informed me that she had finally decided that she will..... but with one condition... that my wife returns to meetings.
Yeap.. there you have it. The captive organization that Mr Stewart of the ARC so finely pointed out is now in action. Despite being away from its clutches for years, I am back under their foot. If I go thru with it and my wife does not go to the meetings, MIL will most likely leave us. This means having to pay for daycare, and probably even a provider for her because we can't trust my brother in law. If we don't go thru with the move, my job is just going to turn ever more complicated as my boss' patience is going to wear out. Not to mention this new place is not only shelter for us, is also a good investment opportunity. Regardless of what we ultimately do, the line has been drawn and if we don't stand on the right side of it, the grief and anguish will still be there.
I am ever more convinced that there is no such a thing as leaving a cult. You avoid them, sometimes at a price. No wonder ex-cult members are often called cult "survivors". Surviving is what I will be doing, at least until my MIL passes away. By then, many of these opportunities now present would have probably passed me on. The last thing I want is to strain the relationship between my wife and her mom.
I have a bit over 2 days to decide what to do... wish me luck