Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm sorry you relationship with J___ was affected so badly, as a former "way kid" I know just how difficult getting fundementalist parents and anyone they havent picked themselves to get along.
Many members of twi are just as manuplitive and two faced as you've described, but there are those with good intentions. Was J___ raised inside? If so, she might have been under hevy pressure to act so cruely. I'm not telling you to forgive her or anything, but to consider talking to her if you cross paths again. It is possible that she didn't want to snub you, but that she was being "spiritually threatened." If you had stayed in longer (though you seem to have dodged that bullet =P), the advanced class and other "meat of the word" starts telling you that you're only a "though away from possession." That a single sin could remove you from gods favor and leave you an insane pawn of the devil. Its terrifying if you belive them, and can be hard to stop beliveing them if youve heard it all your life.
Do you know how this site got its name? Most of us were threatened that if we left twi we'd "be a grease spot by midnight."
Its very reasonable to decide that too much damage has been done for you to do anything with J___ but move on. That's certinly the case with my own "lost young love" story, also ravaged by twi. That said, an email with nothing but "are you still in?" and a link to your post here might provide both of you a lot of closure.
Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm sorry you relationship with J___ was affected so badly, as a former "way kid" I know just how difficult getting fundementalist parents and anyone they havent picked themselves to get along.
Many members of twi are just as manuplitive and two faced as you've described, but there are those with good intentions. Was J___ raised inside? If so, she might have been under hevy pressure to act so cruely. I'm not telling you to forgive her or anything, but to consider talking to her if you cross paths again. It is possible that she didn't want to snub you, but that she was being "spiritually threatened." If you had stayed in longer (though you seem to have dodged that bullet =P), the advanced class and other "meat of the word" starts telling you that you're only a "though away from possession." That a single sin could remove you from gods favor and leave you an insane pawn of the devil. Its terrifying if you belive them, and can be hard to stop beliveing them if youve heard it all your life.
Do you know how this site got its name? Most of us were threatened that if we left twi we'd "be a grease spot by midnight."
Its very reasonable to decide that too much damage has been done for you to do anything with J___ but move on. That's certinly the case with my own "lost young love" story, also ravaged by twi. That said, an email with nothing but "are you still in?" and a link to your post here might provide both of you a lot of closure.
Thanks for your comments! I didn't know about origins of "grease spot", that's a memorable quote! You brought up some very astute ssues. While the focus of my involvement with TWI was J_____, I did move on from her a long time ago. The only things I regret were not trying to keep an avenue of communication open, in view of the fac tthat she probably left TWI, but then again, with the solid front of her parents and TWI against it, this may not have been possible. In the end, I believed it was futile to stay and try to "save" her, no matter how badly I wanted to, and that the best thing was to remove myself from a bad situation.
I believe you are correct, that it was the intense pressure that caused her to act like she did. She was living at home and her mother was very domineering and overbearing, and her Mom was a dominant figure of the Household as well. I would like to belive that J____ knew that was was happening was wrong, but she A) felt powerless to do anything and B) was conflicted by a desire to "do God's Will" and obey the Way. I wonder how many other people had this same conflict... If it had been me, though, I think I would have approached me at the Dance club and said something like "I just want to say that I'm very sorry about what happened. I just don't feel like I can go against TWI and my parents." But I know that not everyone has the presence of mind or the courage to do this. Though I was hurt and angry at her for a long time, now I feel that she as basically a good person who just didn't know how to deal with the pressure.
In retrospect, the dyamics of this Household were truly fascinating. On one hand, they were supposedly trying to "bring the truth" to others. But in reality, it was more of a social clique, where maintaining the status quo of the relationships in the Household was actually what took precedence. Much of what they did flew in the face of what they preached. I am still amazed at how the HC said, on one hand, let me know everything about your life, but then raved that I was wasting his time. They operated with classic "cult" techniques. Lovebomb, then try to separate the target from "nonbelievers", and make TWI the focus of their lives. But in my case, their desire to stifle anything between she and I superceded everything else. (My gut feeling was that they desperately wanted her to marry "up" in TWI.)
Their methods appeared to be something they were taught by rote, but they did not really understand. When their simplistic approach of "lovebomb 'em" then "tear 'em down" did not work with me, they seemed unable to comprehend that it was failing or to switch tactics. TWI was not as effective as they seem to believe, or it could be that I was simply an atypical case.
I'm sorry they did this to you. It looks like maybe J___ had genuine feelings for you and that scared the parents and leadership.
That doesn't fit well with "the plan" unless you become one of them as well. I'm glad you didn't.
Perhaps next time something similar happens to you, you will be a bit wiser for the lesson. That is, indeed, something to be thankful for.
"A pyramid scheme for Jesus"
I think you're right: I think her parents and TWI leaders were obsessed with marrying her off to a TWI "bigwig" of some sort. In front of them she would say things like "If I get married, they have to be Way Corps." I also think they were uncomfortable with anyone who seemed to have any Biblical knowledge that came outside TWI. In the Household, no one had any higher education except for J and myself, they were truck drivers, hairdressers, etc, and there is nothing wrong with that, but I think they felt a bit threatened, and that's why the HC ranted that "no one understands a thing you say". I have always been very interested in Biblical history and I like to talk about it, but this seemed to tick them off in a major way. I guess everyone was supposed to just sit and listen to the HC reading the lesson plan!
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah ahaha ha ha ha ha ha
how old are you ? well i guess around grad student age (at least at that time)
i wish i had your perception way back
thanks for your thoughts. excellent !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks for your reply! I'm a bit older than that, but I had just gone back to grad school about that time. At one of my last couple of meetings, I also took a book with me to see if anyone noticed: I think it was one of Aleister Crowley's books! No one noticed. I was annoyed by the way everyone seemed to think they were so superior just because they had been in TWI for decades. But they never seemed to be able to respond to anything unless it was straight out of a TWI handbook, and they were certainly not very observant!
I've liked reading the observations that you share in your posts even though the whole topic makes me feel a little sad. I used to expect so much better from TWI.
As a PFAL grad I saw many good things taught that might have led to even more good stuff, and I believe it still. (That it might have happened that is.) But TWI took several hard turns for the worse and I fear that many folks are still living in the bottled up and stifled state that you so ably describe your former girlfriend and her family living in.
I am glad that you recognized it for what it was however.
sad about that superiority thing about "how long you had been in the word" or "stood with the ministry" or "when you took pfal" blah blah blah blah blah blah barf ;)
I've liked reading the observations that you share in your posts even though the whole topic makes me feel a little sad. I used to expect so much better from TWI.
As a PFAL grad I saw many good things taught that might have led to even more good stuff, and I believe it still. (That it might have happened that is.) But TWI took several hard turns for the worse and I fear that many folks are still living in the bottled up and stifled state that you so ably describe your former girlfriend and her family living in.
I am glad that you recognized it for what it was however.
Thanks! I sort of had the same feeling: if people had really been the way they presented themselves when I first started attending the Household, it would have been a great group! But it seemed that when they decided I was "hooked", the whip came down! And I mean it *really* came down. I remember think to myself "Do they really think I am going to stay around and get treated like this?" But I guess they did! It was just incredible how supposedly they wanted to "bring people to the Word", but ended up doing the opposite. From overhearing my HC's laments about not being able to keep people in the Houshold, I think my experience was not unique.
Sometimes I have thought that I should have stayed longer and addressed some of their inconsistencies directly and not made thins easier for them by simply splitting, but I realize now that this would have been futile and even more unpleasant.
sad about that superiority thing about "how long you had been in the word" or "stood with the ministry" or "when you took pfal" blah blah blah blah blah blah barf ;)
Ha, I had forgotten about those little catchphrases! Barf is right:)
Doc, thanks for sharing. I have been out of TWI for 20+ years, but I did attend a fellowship almost 10 years ago with my ex-brother-in-law who is still in and WC. I remembered thinking that something was different, because I had to be vouched for to get in. In my day, the meetings were open to anyone. We tried to let the public know when and where we were meeting so new people could freely come in.
However, even back in the 70s and early 80s, I would occasionally meet someone who would seem to me to be a puppet, not thinking for themselves. I took all of the available classes, and I believed a lot of what I was taught, but I tried to check things out from other sources too. Sometimes, I knew something was wrong, and I mentioned it to whoever was coordinating the particular class. Sometimes I would be told that there were errors in the recorded class, but these were corrected in later works, which I would be able to see or hear at some point. Other times, the coordinator would insist that it was correct but I just didn't understand it. Only once did someone raise their voice and say, "It's true because the MOG says it's true, and that settles it!" That person happened to be B@rb@r@ G33r, wife of you know who, and this was back before they even moved to HQ and went into the WC. At the time, I felt that this attitude was a direct contradiction of what I had gotten as the main message of the PFAL class -- thinking for yourself and searching the scriptures to see whether these things were so. I still think so. The difference now is that after finding GSC, I know that what I thought was an isolated occurrence then was (and is) much more widespread.
I remember that hierarchy thing, too. When I married my first husband, who was a PFAL grad, I was told by several people that he wasn't worthy of me because he wasn't as spiritual as I was. (Ha!) They concluded this because I had taken all those classes, had been through the Advanced Class twice, and had been accepted to the WC, even though I ended up not going in. He had never gotten as far as the AC or taken the prerequisites, and he never aspired to leadership. We "left" TWI a few years later, not intentionally, we just stopped going because we had a lot happening in our lives at the time. When we thought about going back, a lot of the "twigs" just weren't there any more. (This was 21 or 22 years ago, and I just found out why a couple of weeks ago!)
In retrospect, I'm thankful that it worked out that way. I have children, and my firstborn was there for our last couple of years in TWI. I can't imagine telling her who she can or can't date or marry. The same goes for my youngest, who was born around the time the manure hit the fan. After all, they are both adults now.
This reminds me of something I read in another thread about cults controlling people by treating adults like children. Even though J____ was an adult (and in graduate school), she was still being treated like a child. Some parents do this to their children, but your narrative made it clear that it wasn't just her parents being unable to let her grow up -- it was the whole Household. That's sad.
sad about that superiority thing about "how long you had been in the word" or "stood with the ministry" or "when you took pfal" blah blah blah blah blah blah barf ;)
Doc, thanks for sharing. I have been out of TWI for 20+ years, but I did attend a fellowship almost 10 years ago with my ex-brother-in-law who is still in and WC. I remembered thinking that something was different, because I had to be vouched for to get in. In my day, the meetings were open to anyone. We tried to let the public know when and where we were meeting so new people could freely come in.
However, even back in the 70s and early 80s, I would occasionally meet someone who would seem to me to be a puppet, not thinking for themselves. I took all of the available classes, and I believed a lot of what I was taught, but I tried to check things out from other sources too. Sometimes, I knew something was wrong, and I mentioned it to whoever was coordinating the particular class. Sometimes I would be told that there were errors in the recorded class, but these were corrected in later works, which I would be able to see or hear at some point. Other times, the coordinator would insist that it was correct but I just didn't understand it. Only once did someone raise their voice and say, "It's true because the MOG says it's true, and that settles it!" That person happened to be B@rb@r@ G33r, wife of you know who, and this was back before they even moved to HQ and went into the WC. At the time, I felt that this attitude was a direct contradiction of what I had gotten as the main message of the PFAL class -- thinking for yourself and searching the scriptures to see whether these things were so. I still think so. The difference now is that after finding GSC, I know that what I thought was an isolated occurrence then was (and is) much more widespread.
I remember that hierarchy thing, too. When I married my first husband, who was a PFAL grad, I was told by several people that he wasn't worthy of me because he wasn't as spiritual as I was. (Ha!) They concluded this because I had taken all those classes, had been through the Advanced Class twice, and had been accepted to the WC, even though I ended up not going in. He had never gotten as far as the AC or taken the prerequisites, and he never aspired to leadership. We "left" TWI a few years later, not intentionally, we just stopped going because we had a lot happening in our lives at the time. When we thought about going back, a lot of the "twigs" just weren't there any more. (This was 21 or 22 years ago, and I just found out why a couple of weeks ago!)
In retrospect, I'm thankful that it worked out that way. I have children, and my firstborn was there for our last couple of years in TWI. I can't imagine telling her who she can or can't date or marry. The same goes for my youngest, who was born around the time the manure hit the fan. After all, they are both adults now.
This reminds me of something I read in another thread about cults controlling people by treating adults like children. Even though J____ was an adult (and in graduate school), she was still being treated like a child. Some parents do this to their children, but your narrative made it clear that it wasn't just her parents being unable to let her grow up -- it was the whole Household. That's sad.
Thanks for your post, hampshire73! Your account brings up some interesting points! When I joined, TWI was still masquerading as a "Biblical Research and Study group". I got the who spiel about how TWI was "teach" how to "properly research the Bible". The coordinators were adamant that "we aren't going to tell you to believe anything! We will give you the tools to research properly, and then you can decide for yourself." This sounded good. But of course, that's not what happened. They do indeed tell you what to believe, and don't brook any disagreements. From the very term "Biblical Research and Study", at first I assumed it was all about having discussions about Biblical history and research, and I was so enthusiastic that I missed how irritated and annoyed the household coordinator was getting. The Girl and I used to have lengthy discussions about Biblical history and doctrines, and told me greatly enjoyed this, so I assumed this was what I would find in the Household. Boy, was I wrong! I had noticed that she would "dumb down" her discussions when she was in the Fellowship. The Household Coordinator didn't really know much other than what was in the lesson plans, and I think he felt threatened.
You're right about treating people like a child. For someone to be in grad school and their mother yells at them when they call someone; and for the Fellowship Coordinator to be screaming 'A DATE? A DATE? YOU WENT ON A DATE!" in front of the whole branch was downright funky, and not in a James Brown way! You'd have thought she was 13. For the whole Household to revolve around monitoring her relationships was bizarre.
Your account of how TWI people said your husband wasn't "worthy" of you sparked a few memories. I believe that The Girl's parents desperately wanted to marry her of to some TWI Bigwig. In front of them she would say things like "If I get married, they HAVE to be Way Corps." They were grooming her for something, but the Martindale Scandal, which happened at about the same time, must have thrown a monkey wrench into things.
Like you, I finally came to the conclusion that things worked out for the best. Although I knew TWI was BS, if things had worked out between us, I would have gladly stayed in TWI and considered the trade-off worth it. But, who knows what might have happened? Getting enmeshed with her whacked out family and TWI could not have boded well. I believe that they were afraid that if our relationship had lasted, she would have left TWI. They are probably correct, and I suspect that's what happened a year or so later. When everyone was trying to rewrite history to claim that her sole reason for talking to me was to lead me to Jesus, she called me and asked me not to mention things we had done together, because this was her "private life". I then realized that she was playing both sides. Yep, it was time to bail.
The one thing that makes me sad is thinking about the two little girls we took to the fair. For one day it like I had daughters of my own, and this was one of the most fun days I ever had. They should be nearly out of their teens now, and I have fervently hoped that they were not manipulated and used like everyone else. I'm glad you were able to exit before your daughters were exposed to more of these people!
Everyone likes to say "But there were some great people in TWI!" This is just a bait and switch tactic. Whether some people are great has nothing to do with evaluating the organization as a whole. I"m sure there were some Slaveowners who were good people, too, but that didn't make Slavery acceptable. When the system is rotten, it allows the bad people to flourish. Good people are there in spite of, not because of, the system.
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nick
Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm sorry you relationship with J___ was affected so badly, as a former "way kid" I know just how difficult getting fundementalist parents and anyone they havent picked themselves to get along.
Many members of twi are just as manuplitive and two faced as you've described, but there are those with good intentions. Was J___ raised inside? If so, she might have been under hevy pressure to act so cruely. I'm not telling you to forgive her or anything, but to consider talking to her if you cross paths again. It is possible that she didn't want to snub you, but that she was being "spiritually threatened." If you had stayed in longer (though you seem to have dodged that bullet =P), the advanced class and other "meat of the word" starts telling you that you're only a "though away from possession." That a single sin could remove you from gods favor and leave you an insane pawn of the devil. Its terrifying if you belive them, and can be hard to stop beliveing them if youve heard it all your life.
Do you know how this site got its name? Most of us were threatened that if we left twi we'd "be a grease spot by midnight."
Its very reasonable to decide that too much damage has been done for you to do anything with J___ but move on. That's certinly the case with my own "lost young love" story, also ravaged by twi. That said, an email with nothing but "are you still in?" and a link to your post here might provide both of you a lot of closure.
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waysider
Hi, Doc
Enticement has always been a part of TWI's M.O.
I'm sorry they did this to you. It looks like maybe J___ had genuine feelings for you and that scared the parents and leadership.
That doesn't fit well with "the plan" unless you become one of them as well. I'm glad you didn't.
Perhaps next time something similar happens to you, you will be a bit wiser for the lesson. That is, indeed, something to be thankful for.
"A pyramid scheme for Jesus"
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DocHoliday
Thanks for your comments! I didn't know about origins of "grease spot", that's a memorable quote! You brought up some very astute ssues. While the focus of my involvement with TWI was J_____, I did move on from her a long time ago. The only things I regret were not trying to keep an avenue of communication open, in view of the fac tthat she probably left TWI, but then again, with the solid front of her parents and TWI against it, this may not have been possible. In the end, I believed it was futile to stay and try to "save" her, no matter how badly I wanted to, and that the best thing was to remove myself from a bad situation.
I believe you are correct, that it was the intense pressure that caused her to act like she did. She was living at home and her mother was very domineering and overbearing, and her Mom was a dominant figure of the Household as well. I would like to belive that J____ knew that was was happening was wrong, but she A) felt powerless to do anything and B) was conflicted by a desire to "do God's Will" and obey the Way. I wonder how many other people had this same conflict... If it had been me, though, I think I would have approached me at the Dance club and said something like "I just want to say that I'm very sorry about what happened. I just don't feel like I can go against TWI and my parents." But I know that not everyone has the presence of mind or the courage to do this. Though I was hurt and angry at her for a long time, now I feel that she as basically a good person who just didn't know how to deal with the pressure.
In retrospect, the dyamics of this Household were truly fascinating. On one hand, they were supposedly trying to "bring the truth" to others. But in reality, it was more of a social clique, where maintaining the status quo of the relationships in the Household was actually what took precedence. Much of what they did flew in the face of what they preached. I am still amazed at how the HC said, on one hand, let me know everything about your life, but then raved that I was wasting his time. They operated with classic "cult" techniques. Lovebomb, then try to separate the target from "nonbelievers", and make TWI the focus of their lives. But in my case, their desire to stifle anything between she and I superceded everything else. (My gut feeling was that they desperately wanted her to marry "up" in TWI.)
Their methods appeared to be something they were taught by rote, but they did not really understand. When their simplistic approach of "lovebomb 'em" then "tear 'em down" did not work with me, they seemed unable to comprehend that it was failing or to switch tactics. TWI was not as effective as they seem to believe, or it could be that I was simply an atypical case.
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DocHoliday
I think you're right: I think her parents and TWI leaders were obsessed with marrying her off to a TWI "bigwig" of some sort. In front of them she would say things like "If I get married, they have to be Way Corps." I also think they were uncomfortable with anyone who seemed to have any Biblical knowledge that came outside TWI. In the Household, no one had any higher education except for J and myself, they were truck drivers, hairdressers, etc, and there is nothing wrong with that, but I think they felt a bit threatened, and that's why the HC ranted that "no one understands a thing you say". I have always been very interested in Biblical history and I like to talk about it, but this seemed to tick them off in a major way. I guess everyone was supposed to just sit and listen to the HC reading the lesson plan!
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excathedra
welcome doc !!!!!!
ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hah ahaha ha ha ha ha hahow old are you ? well i guess around grad student age (at least at that time)
i wish i had your perception way back
thanks for your thoughts. excellent !!!!!!!!!!!!!
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DocHoliday
Thanks for your reply! I'm a bit older than that, but I had just gone back to grad school about that time. At one of my last couple of meetings, I also took a book with me to see if anyone noticed: I think it was one of Aleister Crowley's books! No one noticed. I was annoyed by the way everyone seemed to think they were so superior just because they had been in TWI for decades. But they never seemed to be able to respond to anything unless it was straight out of a TWI handbook, and they were certainly not very observant!
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JeffSjo
Hi Doc holiday,
I've liked reading the observations that you share in your posts even though the whole topic makes me feel a little sad. I used to expect so much better from TWI.
As a PFAL grad I saw many good things taught that might have led to even more good stuff, and I believe it still. (That it might have happened that is.) But TWI took several hard turns for the worse and I fear that many folks are still living in the bottled up and stifled state that you so ably describe your former girlfriend and her family living in.
I am glad that you recognized it for what it was however.
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excathedra
sad about that superiority thing about "how long you had been in the word" or "stood with the ministry" or "when you took pfal" blah blah blah blah blah blah barf ;)
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DocHoliday
Thanks! I sort of had the same feeling: if people had really been the way they presented themselves when I first started attending the Household, it would have been a great group! But it seemed that when they decided I was "hooked", the whip came down! And I mean it *really* came down. I remember think to myself "Do they really think I am going to stay around and get treated like this?" But I guess they did! It was just incredible how supposedly they wanted to "bring people to the Word", but ended up doing the opposite. From overhearing my HC's laments about not being able to keep people in the Houshold, I think my experience was not unique.
Sometimes I have thought that I should have stayed longer and addressed some of their inconsistencies directly and not made thins easier for them by simply splitting, but I realize now that this would have been futile and even more unpleasant.
Ha, I had forgotten about those little catchphrases! Barf is right:)
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hampshire73
Doc, thanks for sharing. I have been out of TWI for 20+ years, but I did attend a fellowship almost 10 years ago with my ex-brother-in-law who is still in and WC. I remembered thinking that something was different, because I had to be vouched for to get in. In my day, the meetings were open to anyone. We tried to let the public know when and where we were meeting so new people could freely come in.
However, even back in the 70s and early 80s, I would occasionally meet someone who would seem to me to be a puppet, not thinking for themselves. I took all of the available classes, and I believed a lot of what I was taught, but I tried to check things out from other sources too. Sometimes, I knew something was wrong, and I mentioned it to whoever was coordinating the particular class. Sometimes I would be told that there were errors in the recorded class, but these were corrected in later works, which I would be able to see or hear at some point. Other times, the coordinator would insist that it was correct but I just didn't understand it. Only once did someone raise their voice and say, "It's true because the MOG says it's true, and that settles it!" That person happened to be B@rb@r@ G33r, wife of you know who, and this was back before they even moved to HQ and went into the WC. At the time, I felt that this attitude was a direct contradiction of what I had gotten as the main message of the PFAL class -- thinking for yourself and searching the scriptures to see whether these things were so. I still think so. The difference now is that after finding GSC, I know that what I thought was an isolated occurrence then was (and is) much more widespread.
I remember that hierarchy thing, too. When I married my first husband, who was a PFAL grad, I was told by several people that he wasn't worthy of me because he wasn't as spiritual as I was. (Ha!) They concluded this because I had taken all those classes, had been through the Advanced Class twice, and had been accepted to the WC, even though I ended up not going in. He had never gotten as far as the AC or taken the prerequisites, and he never aspired to leadership. We "left" TWI a few years later, not intentionally, we just stopped going because we had a lot happening in our lives at the time. When we thought about going back, a lot of the "twigs" just weren't there any more. (This was 21 or 22 years ago, and I just found out why a couple of weeks ago!)
In retrospect, I'm thankful that it worked out that way. I have children, and my firstborn was there for our last couple of years in TWI. I can't imagine telling her who she can or can't date or marry. The same goes for my youngest, who was born around the time the manure hit the fan. After all, they are both adults now.
This reminds me of something I read in another thread about cults controlling people by treating adults like children. Even though J____ was an adult (and in graduate school), she was still being treated like a child. Some parents do this to their children, but your narrative made it clear that it wasn't just her parents being unable to let her grow up -- it was the whole Household. That's sad.
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JeffSjo
I hope you know that you rock my world! LOL
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DocHoliday
Thanks for your post, hampshire73! Your account brings up some interesting points! When I joined, TWI was still masquerading as a "Biblical Research and Study group". I got the who spiel about how TWI was "teach" how to "properly research the Bible". The coordinators were adamant that "we aren't going to tell you to believe anything! We will give you the tools to research properly, and then you can decide for yourself." This sounded good. But of course, that's not what happened. They do indeed tell you what to believe, and don't brook any disagreements. From the very term "Biblical Research and Study", at first I assumed it was all about having discussions about Biblical history and research, and I was so enthusiastic that I missed how irritated and annoyed the household coordinator was getting. The Girl and I used to have lengthy discussions about Biblical history and doctrines, and told me greatly enjoyed this, so I assumed this was what I would find in the Household. Boy, was I wrong! I had noticed that she would "dumb down" her discussions when she was in the Fellowship. The Household Coordinator didn't really know much other than what was in the lesson plans, and I think he felt threatened.
You're right about treating people like a child. For someone to be in grad school and their mother yells at them when they call someone; and for the Fellowship Coordinator to be screaming 'A DATE? A DATE? YOU WENT ON A DATE!" in front of the whole branch was downright funky, and not in a James Brown way! You'd have thought she was 13. For the whole Household to revolve around monitoring her relationships was bizarre.
Your account of how TWI people said your husband wasn't "worthy" of you sparked a few memories. I believe that The Girl's parents desperately wanted to marry her of to some TWI Bigwig. In front of them she would say things like "If I get married, they HAVE to be Way Corps." They were grooming her for something, but the Martindale Scandal, which happened at about the same time, must have thrown a monkey wrench into things.
Like you, I finally came to the conclusion that things worked out for the best. Although I knew TWI was BS, if things had worked out between us, I would have gladly stayed in TWI and considered the trade-off worth it. But, who knows what might have happened? Getting enmeshed with her whacked out family and TWI could not have boded well. I believe that they were afraid that if our relationship had lasted, she would have left TWI. They are probably correct, and I suspect that's what happened a year or so later. When everyone was trying to rewrite history to claim that her sole reason for talking to me was to lead me to Jesus, she called me and asked me not to mention things we had done together, because this was her "private life". I then realized that she was playing both sides. Yep, it was time to bail.
The one thing that makes me sad is thinking about the two little girls we took to the fair. For one day it like I had daughters of my own, and this was one of the most fun days I ever had. They should be nearly out of their teens now, and I have fervently hoped that they were not manipulated and used like everyone else. I'm glad you were able to exit before your daughters were exposed to more of these people!
Everyone likes to say "But there were some great people in TWI!" This is just a bait and switch tactic. Whether some people are great has nothing to do with evaluating the organization as a whole. I"m sure there were some Slaveowners who were good people, too, but that didn't make Slavery acceptable. When the system is rotten, it allows the bad people to flourish. Good people are there in spite of, not because of, the system.
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