UPDATE:
Thanks for all the PMs everyone. I am pretty inundated with those and with my wife - and with work - so I will DEFINITELY respond soon. Also I will respond to comments in this thread soon too. Thanks for ALL THE SUPPORT. It is a great and secure feeling knowing I am not alone in this (and I think the security shows through in the talks with my wife.)
I got home this morning after running to the coffee shop to type the initial post that started this thread.
My wife was sitting at the kitchen table finishing up going through the 4 folders I had left for her from the previous night.
I took jgnat's suggestion and sincerely thanked her for listening last night and I thought that was very considerate of her. I also told her I would make time at night for us to read from the bible together. (I would love some suggestions on how to do this to maximize the effectiveness. I have some ideas but am open to suggestions.) She said she would like to pray together too.
She said she still felt what I was doing was malicious and faultfinding. I reiterated to her why I was studying in the first place, and that it was supposed to be to BOLSTER my faith - but as I studied more and more and things didn't add up I did get angry. I also admitted to her: "Yes - There were times when I went down a trail of evidence and I got so angry at the results that I started to look for other critical evidence. But my initial start and my general research was not just to pummel the Society."
She asked me a couple of other minor questions about some of the stuff in the folders, and then put her face in her hands and said, "I just don't know what to believe."
She then started sobbing.
I started crying too. I sat across the table from her and held her hand. She went on more about how it would mean turning her back from EVERYTHING she has ever known.
After a while of this - and me telling her how much I love her, she started asking more questions.
Questions like, "where will we go?" "What will we do?" "Walking away from this would feel like I am turning my back on Jehovah."
She asked a unique one (I thought). She said, "Is it somehow possible to maybe be a Witness but not really believe everything they teach?"
I was kind of floored when she said this.
I responded that I feel there are people doing that already. People that make meetings fairly regularly, get a couple hours in field service a month to keep the elders at bay, love the friends, but make no effort to reach out. She agreed. I said that is certainly a way to do it, but then you have to think about what that says about an Organization that gets our attendance merely because we want to maintain our friends. What kind of friendship is that?
She asked me if I didn't think that maybe it had something to do with the stuff with my dad when I was a kid (I was from a divided household). I said I think about that quite often. I told her I do feel it has something to do with it and how guilty I felt thinking about how I equated my dad with Satan and some of the things I said to him as a JW kid. I started crying again and said I felt SO AWFUL for saying those things to him.
Somehow we got on the subject of baptism again and I pointed out how even she had mentioned in the past how it seems weird that a 10-year old can get baptized and it is billed as "one of the most important decision in your life". But a 17-year-old wants to get married - which the society ALSO bills as "on of the most important decisions in your life", but that he is too young to make that decsion because as a 17-year-old it would be based purely on emotion - not love. I told her how I felt the same way. When I was 14 and got baptized I was at a crossroads in my life and scared to death. I had just played Freshman football in high school and my mom guilted me about it all the time - that I would fall out of the truth and die at Armageddon. I felt like if I got baptized that would force me to drop the football stuff because so much was at stake as a baptized person - it would FORCE me to make that decision. And of course, my mom ... as the sole parental JW felt this baptism vindicated her fight against Satan (i.e. my dad).
So I agreed that has something to do with it.
She said a couple of times "It looks now like moving away is really the only option we have."
I told her of a conversation I had with her aunt. She basically felt a "fade" coupled with a move away from the family was worthwhile because it kept her family members she loved so much from having to make the hard decisions like, "Will/Won't we talk to her?" "Will we shun her?" in addition to what family get-togethers she will/won't be invited to.
I told her I feel the same thing and I know it is not easy to abandon an entire support structure.
I also told her that one thing as a credit in the JWs favor is they brought us together - I was able to meet her. I told her I think she is truly one of the most incredible people I have ever known - and many of her friends also think the same thing about her. I told her she is amazing and I am lucky to have her as my wife.
I told her this was something I had always wrestled with myself - because when we met I was at Bethel, she was a regular pioneer, and THAT is the foundation we built out marriage on. She jumped right on that and came back to the same questions from earlier: Questions like, "where will we go?" "What will we do?" "Walking away from this would feel like I am turning my back on Jehovah."
Then we got into the whole "organization" vs. Jesus stuff again. But this time it wasn't said with any sort of "challenging" voice. She was asking very meekly this time. She was trying to make sense of it in her head. I honestly think she is starting to see the logic in her head.
There were many big evidence bombs in those folders I had for her that I never presented to her last night. So I know she saw those herself with out me being around. Perhaps that helped some? Not sure.
At that point our 4-year old came up and said she was hungry and we took this as a cue to stop for a bit.
Later she came into the room I was working from and sat behind me for a bit. I told her I had a couple of unsolicited web programming job offers here in town. She asked me if I had sent any resumes out in North Carolina yet. Yes! That was good to hear. I was working and my free hand - when available I kept on her leg and was rubbing her leg.
She had to leave a few moments ago and before she left we gave each other a hug that lasted for probably 5 minutes. I started sobbing and told her how bad I felt for being such a crappy husband by not communicating with her. She held me tight and rubbed my back and said I was an awesome husband and I took great care of her and the kids. (I'm sorta tearing up as write this ..) I told her I loved her so much and she said she loves me too.
I think things are making a turn for the better, and I just hope the emotional swings the other way won't be too detreimental.
