Expert: Andrew - 9/22/2009

Question
QUESTION: My mom is just such a wonderful person. I was raised in a Lutheran home, we went to church on Sundays, I was moderately involved in my church youth group and still go to church today. My mom was raised Christian and I have always felt that she had strong faith even if she does not go to church very often anymore. She is fifty five, been divorced for about 15 years now and really has not dated much in those years because she said she was happier not having to deal with men and the stress that comes with relationships. Last year she started dating a man who she fell head over heels for. I have honestly never seen her happier. They moved in together earlier this summer and everything just seemed almost perfect.  Come to find out that he had been a Jehovahs Witness for his whole life and chose to leave the church to be with her. Two weeks ago she called and said that he had left her (after visiting his son who is JW for a week) because he feels that he has to return to the church. My mom is just devestated, inconsolable. I don't even feel like I recognise her. She has always been a very strong woman and very sure of herself and extremely independent. A few days after he left she started talking about looking into becoming a JW. Although I really do not agree with it, I was trying to be supportive but steer her away from the thought. I told her that she should go to the library or get on the internet and do some of her own research. I begged her to please not go to a JW church for the information she was looking for. She did not listen to me and went to their "meeting" on Sunday and today is reading the Watchtower propaganda and going to a "Bible" study with them tonight. I have done some research on my own and have printed things off for her and mailed them today. She still says she is keeping an open mind but I feel like just by her going there I have already lost her. I feel like she is impressionable right now and wants nothing more than to be with this guy no matter what the cost. Unfortunately I now feel like I am in a lose/ lose situation. I would like to know if she chooses to become a JW and I obviously do not support it and will not become a JW, what will they dictate her relationship with me become? I have heard that they teach that their members should only have relationships with other Witnesses and I am scared to death that this is going to change everything with us. Thank you so much in advance for reading my story and answering my question.

ANSWER: Dear Meg,

There isn't just one right answer to every question. Although I would rarely look at it from this perspective, what if your mother is better off becoming a Witness? Yes, she will lose a big chunk of her family relationships, and her relationship with you will probably be impaired a little, maybe even a lot. I could be wrong, but I get the sense you're grown and she's lonely, so how central in her life should her relationship with you be anyway at this point?

Yes, she will lose personal freedoms to think her own thoughts by becoming a Witness. But with only 20 years left in her expected lifetime, and probably few opportunities for intimate relationships that would really make her happy, is it possible that the trade off in her case is worth it? Is there such a thing as a gilded cage?

For a younger person I wouldn't think this way, not for a minute, because the cost of losing family and freedom of mind is high. But for an older person who has been alone for a long time, and finally found her joy in an unexpected place (the man, not the organization), is it possible that the benefits of becoming a Witness might outweigh the cost in her case?

If your mother has grandchildren, or is likely to ever have grandchildren, then I think the cost is too high, because (as a cult member) she may be a detrimental influence to them. She needs her grandchildren more than she needs a man (and you would not be able to permit normal grandchild/grandparent relations without harming your children). Her grandchildren's needs outweigh her own, and she would no doubt be the first to admit that. But if she has no grandchildren and never will, perhaps we should give her this moment of happiness.

A new recruit like your mother, becoming a Witness, will be taught that she should limit her social contacts as much as possible ("choose associates") from within the Witness congregations. Since you're not within their congregations, she will choose to socialize with you less. If you live in the same house, you won't notice. If you live in different homes, she'll come over for coffee or dinner less often.

If she becomes serious about the Witnesses, she will stop celebrating birthdays and holidays, which might be painful for you. But the Witnesses will not teach her to shun you unless you keep badmouthing them. She will just begin to treat you as the rest of the Witnesses do, like a person who knows no better. She'll be an "insider" and you'll be an "outsider" in their little elitist community. Yes, it's a little condescending. No, you shouldn't "have to" put up with this. But considering how little time she has left in this world, is it something you could put up with so she can be with a man who apparently really makes her happy?

If you decide to try to steer her away from the Witnesses and this man, you'd better be there for her long term, and not leave her alone after you succeed. Are you prepared for that? (Better yet, could you play matchmaker between her and another man her age who would lead her off in a healthier direction? Maybe it's too late for that.)

Either way, whatever you choose to do next, you MUST BE CAREFUL what you say about the Witnesses. If you get a reputation for being a naysayer (even though you're right), she may cut off her relationship with you just because of that. She may frame your behavior as being unsupportive or unenlightened or jealous; she may never understand that there is real risk in cult mind control. She may never really understand. Can you live with that?

If you have any shot of steering her away from the Witnesses, you may blow your chance by saying the wrong thing. Yet there is no time to waste! Now is the time if you are ever going to have an effect. If you're going to do it, do your homework quickly then do what you can now before she becomes too ingrained in her Witness habits.

I suggest open-ended thought provoking questions that make her think for herself about what the Witnesses really are, not matter-of-fact statements about what they are, because statements are easier to ignore than questions. There are certain things the Witnesses won't teach her at first, that she will discover only gradually, and only after she's hooked. For example, the ways in which her every little decision will be made for her. The ways in which her relationships with her grandchildren will be eroded. (If there are grandchildren, that will reach her heart.)

If you really want to steer her away, find out what those things are. (The things they won't teach her and she won't find out until it's too late.) Find out through me and other online XJW's, and carefully expose her to those things through open-ended thought provoking questions before she's fully conditioned. Craft your questions carefully like stealth bombs. Let her sit with each question for a week or two before you introduce the next one with subtlety in casual conversation. Suspend your need to see outcomes, trust the process. Your eagerness to get feedback, confirmation that she is doubting will be your undoing.

She will then bring those questions to her bible teachers, and they will either begin to think she is a bad apple, and discontinue the study, or she will begin to see they don't have all the answers and they aren't what she thought they were after all. I think that's your best hope if you really want to steer her away from the Witnesses.

But is that what's really best for her? I don't know. What do you think about what I've said?

Blessings,
AndrewXJW

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Andrew~
Your answer was exactly what I thought it would be, though I had hoped for my fears to be unfounded. To be honest I do not see any good answer or end to this situation either. I have always been very close with my mom and have always been able to talk to her about anything. I am just heart broken with the fact that she is so sad, but even more so that the decisions she is making now will affect our relationship. My mom is an intelligent woman, but I feel like I can see the big picture and she is very tunnel visioned. I do not think that she is even understanding the consequences of joining this religion. In answer to your question, neither my little brother or I have kids right now but I am sure that kids are in our future, so your thoughts on grandkids is definitely a concern. I do want her to be happy but can not see her truly being happy if she joins this sect. Loss of free thinking, loss of relationships with her friends, children, family. She has raised me to be and independent person and not to let others influence my beliefs ... because of her I would not consider changing my religion for a man. What kinds of questions do you recommend I ask her? I have never had trouble discussing anything with my mom, now I don't even know where to start. She apparently now is getting her information directly from the organization.  I told her that a concern of mine was that they would not want her to maintain a close relationship with me... she went to them and they said that was ridiculous, that of course she could maintain a relationship with me... I feel like they are telling her what she wasn't to hear, not necessarily the truth. So how am I to get them to be truthful with her in answering my questions?
meg

Answer
Dear Meg,

If she is only 55, and grandkids are likely at some point, I think you should try to steer her away using strategic questions as stealth bombs as I described before, for the sake of your own kids, and for the sake of your mother, who will some day want a relationship with her grandkids.

I guess even mature people are not immune to the tunnel vision that sometimes comes with love. Love is a potent thing, right?

She may be happy for a little while, due to getting back the man she fell in love with, but if that means she can't see her grandkids, the cost is too high, even for her. You would be doing her a favor to do what you can to open her eyes now before it's too late. You certainly will not be able to allow her unrestricted access to your kids later, because she would try to recruit them into the cult. DON'T UNDERESTIMATE THIS DANGER! Grandparents have done just that.

> I told her that a concern of mine was that they would not
> want her to maintain a close relationship with me...she
> went to them and they said that was ridiculous, that of
> course she could...

They have told her their first lie. In their convoluted mindset it isn't a lie, it's a "gradually increasing light" like the sunrise. They justify this behavior by telling themselves that people not yet well-founded in their idealogy are vulnerable and not ready to hear the whole truth.

The most effective way to combat that is to find people who were in exactly the same situation, perhaps a mom whose daughter became a Witness, where the mom had concerns, that were pacified in the same way, and that mom still eventually lost her daughter. If you could introduce that mom who lost a daughter to the Witnesses IN PERSON to your mom, it would no longer be a matter of idealogy. It would no longer be a matter of he-said-she-said. She would see in the eyes of the other woman her feeling of loss, and it would wake up something in your mother before it is too late.

It would also be a healing opportunity for that other mother, to know she has the power to help prevent what happened to her from happening again to someone else. You can find probably people like that in your town with patience and determination.

If you can place a Craigslist ad today, and find that mom who lost her daughter, even after the Witnesses promised she wouldn't, and introduce her to your mom tomorrow over coffee, that might really help. When your mom's heart is open to that pain of having lost someone dear, remind your mom that she will someday have grandkids, and you want the family to be together, but you are firmly resolved that you will not allow your kids to be raised under cult influence. If she gets the firm resolve in your eye, that you will not budge, then it doesn't matter whether she believes the Witnesses are a cult (which of course they are). All that will matter is that she knows YOU believe it, and she will lose her grandkids.

I don't believe there is any 55-year-old woman alive in the world today who doesn't want grandkids as a number one life priority.

Blessings and success,
AndrewXJW