ITHINKISEE: The SH*T hit the fan last night. (Update!) (page 8)

mamochan13

Ithinkisee - far from "lacking in the communication department" I think you did an amazing job of communicating such a difficult and sensitive topic with your wife. Good job & good luck.

Many here have been through the experience in a similar manner to you. I have not, since I have not been able to sway my wife one ounce. On the other hand she has always sought to keep things hush hush and just accepts that I am no longer an active JW. I have no regrets though although I confess the past 5 years have been the loneliest years of my life. I have no friends because I will not allow myself to be friends with jws because they just cannot see life without their religion and therefore we have very little in common. On the other hand my wife refuses to have any "worldly" friends....and thus she and the kids still have the "brotherhood" while I am left with nothing.

But I would not change a thing. Like yourself I questioned the teachings since they made very little sense in some areas and over time I decided that I was done (I was born and raised a JW). Perhaps it was the critcal JW mentality and the way all other religions were portrayed as illogical and hypocritical that lead me to not even remotely consider other religions but instead as I examined the teachings of the flood, creation, the mathematical inaccuracy of the witness teaching of JW salvation (thats one of my favorites but I have never seen anyone else write about it - pm me and I will explain it as it is devastating to the JW faith and fairly simple to understand and uses only the Bible and JW teaching), the way I felt that God was taking me for some kind of fool for wanting me to be thankful for him killing his son so that I could live when he was the one wanting to kill me in the first place because some woman listened to a snake 6000 years before I was born....I can go on and on on the poor logic of the JW teachings....but ultimately this led me to reject the Bible too. Why do I write this? To show that you may not even know which road you will take in the future and you may not know which road your wife will take in the future and if the 2 are different it will be even more difficult for your family. I suspect that looking critcally at the JWS as you have you will try to remain some type of Christian, but in time I think you will question that too as you will find a need to be true to yourself and not to commit to that which you cannot prove but instead accepting you cannot prove things and thus accepting that ultimately you desire to maximize the time you have on this planet and living life vs spending your life trying to understand life.

Thanks for posting your continuing saga. You have a tough road ahead of you...the only advise I can offer is that you not try to solve things because you cannot and understanding that fact and getting on with life is the only true peace of mind that we can find once we leave.

hillbilly

Sounds like a carbon copy of what my life was like, Ithinkisee.

Your wife sounds so much like my ex. Your life is about to become a roller coaster. There are 2 outcomes. she will see the light and leave with you. Or,

She will close ranks with the Elders and shove you the rest of the way out of her life. Then the Elders will "sponser" her divorce based on Spiritual abandonment. You will also get blamed for several other kinds of "abuse" as a smokescreen to rationinalize the actions you are about to victimized by.

Wish I could sound cherrier about this...been there done that.

~Hill

Jeffro

(deleted) Didn't read the most up-to-date posts before posting.

mouthy

I just read what YOU wrote Ithinkisee! No others replies-( very busy) So I hope I dont repeat others advices. but I want to tell you I think you did well. Remember the planting is ALL we can do nothing more!!! let the Holy Spirit water your seed. We NEVER know how it will turn out! But KNOW my prayers are with your whole house-hold. We have been warned that we could lose ALL on account of the REAL TRUTH, >JESUS!! That we have been ransomed & freed , > FROM a MAns organization

Just keep on loving her ,assuring her! & PRAYING!!!! If she sees your losing faith in GOD- it will frighten her , God Be with you my friend((((HUG)))

jeeprube

IthinkIsee....I would also love to see those folders! I think you've done a great job with your wife.

I've also benefited from all the wonderful advice in this thread. You guys are great!

ithinkisee

There is some stuff I forgot to post about my original discussion with her. I don't remember where it occured exactly in the discussion, but it may be helpful to others:

After going over the false dates of 1914, 1925, 1941, and 1975 I read her the scriptures in Math 24 and Luke 21 about those who say "The due time has approached!" or "The Christ has arrived." and the explicit instruction "DO NOT LISTEN TO THEM."

I told her that even Christendom - who the Society says is evil - doesn't presume upon themselves to offer dates or make bold claims of the Messiah's return. They feel that would be arrogance and going directly against what Jesus instructed of true Christians.

I also told her that much of Christendom does not have the arrogance to say that a Christian must be a card-carrying member of their church in order to be saved. Much of Christendom actually points to Jesus only - and since we are supposed to have Jesus as our mediator that "we" make the determination whether what the preacher says is in line with what Christ taught. If after much prayer and bible reading we feel they are using too much manmade reasoning, then we can leave without fear of being ostracized.

She said, "But we need a touchstone, something to guide us! Jehovah has always used an organization to guide his people."

I said, "We do! It's the Bible! Do you doubt that if the Bible really is the word of God and that God is a real person that he can't use his HOLY SPIRIT to guide and direct us? If we think that an Organization has to be interjected into the chain of salvation then we are essentially saying that Jesus' sacrifice wasn't good enough. He said he would send a helper - his holy spirit - NOT an organization. In fact nowhere in scripture is there even any mention of the word "organization" - much less any mention by Jesus or the apostles of an organization."

I continued by saying this is one of the hardest things, I feel, for us, is that we have it ingrained in our psyche that there MUST BE an organization there to guide us. But according to scripture Jesus did away with all that.

....and the conversation continued

-ithinkisee

blondie

Does God Work Through An Organization?” by Tom Cabeen (former Bethel Family member) presents a Biblical examination of the Watchtower concept that God works through an organization rather than with individuals.

If you haven't already, you might look at this and see if there are any points you can use.

http://www.brci.org/publications.html

(it's in PDF form)

Blondie

M.J.

Just wanted to re-iterate, ITIS, that your posting of this is so helpful for those of us out there dealing with similar issues. I had a discussion with my wife the other night and was feeling quite heavy-hearted until I read this thread yesterday morning. It gave me such a boost. It was awesome.

vitty

I would make it clear to her that the elders are not to be involved and its between you and her. Tell here if she does alert them it will be taken out of both your hands and make things come to a head before either of you are ready.

An elder caught me off guard one day and I let slip some of the things that were happening between me and my husband, it just made the whole thing worse for me aswell as for him

ITHINKISEE: The SH*T hit the fan last night. (Update!)