Relationship Building

This is my sixth blog in a series on supporting a loved-one who is ensnared in a destructive life choice. Some of my direction and advice is geared specifically to those who are Jehovah's Witnesses, but I hope my information is generic enough to fit your situation.

Relationship Building is one of several strategies you can use to get through to your partner. With this strategy, you know you don’t like the way things are, but you have no idea how to approach your partner. Communication about spiritual and religious things just doesn’t happen. Communication can break down in regular marriages, say, during the child-raising years where couples are busy with domestics and work, and communication may deteriorate into a series of demands. “Did you take the garbage out?, Have you paid the utility bill yet?” Sometimes your partner will be closed-mouthed about his religious involvement, perhaps joining or rejoining behind your back. Or perhaps you are the one who has left the formerly destructive lifestyle and in alarm, your partner retreated further in.

Your first job is to bring the relationship back to a place where there is open, heart-to-heart communication, so that waking-up strategies will have some impact. You might need the help of a counselor to work out the communication barriers that are in your marriage.

Get one of Steve Hassan’s books, and learn to distinguish between the cult personality and the natural personality. Once you are alerted to the difference, the change is visible in your partner's stance and demeanor. Your goal is to keep the cultist calm and unthreatened, and the natural person revived and thinking. Give neutral responses to the cultist, and engaging questions to the natural person.

Complete the family member evaluation form offered on Steve Hassan's website. You don’t need to submit it or send any fees, but the exercise itself will give you insights into your partner.

Ask open-ended questions, asking your partner how she thinks or feels about something. Make sure it is not a yes/no type of question.

Get to know the extended family for clues on how your natural partner is used to relating. My husband was not raised as a witness, so it was a revelation to see how his family related to each other. I found out that Art was mercilessly teased by his brothers and sisters, and he likes it! That sort of gentle teasing is to him a sign of love and attention. I now use humor with him to pass on the real message, and to defuse tense situations. It's the fastest way I have to re-engage his natural personality.

I encouraged a young man facing rejection by his cultist parents to follow a similar strategy and ask his mother about her childhood. Before he started this exercise he was convinced his mother had no natural personality at all and was completely immersed in the cultist persona. While asking her about her difficult childhood, he found out that a non-cultist aunt had been an important influence in his mother's life. From that conversation he encouraged his mother to seek out that aunt and thank her for her efforts.

If your partner has been engaging behind your back, ask to sit in as long as the activity is not illegal or harmful. This might involve attending a sales presentation, a study session or a meeting.  Afterwards, if asked what it was like, start with neutral responses; you want your cultist calm. I think it is critical that couples come to a sense of unity and partnership. This can’t happen if your partner has this side-pocket of secrecy. As dreadful as it might be, insert yourself as an “interested observer”.  Even though it seems as if our loved-ones get drawn in to these situations by some sort of sinister influence, be assured that anyone with a healthy dose of skepticism can resist their charms.

Study the Ladder of Inference (link below) and learn to recognize when misunderstanding is climbing up the ladder. Use respectful inquiry to help your partner make their thought processes visible. Have they climbed the ladder? Use open and non-judgmental questions that do not exhibit any bias, to help you and your partner climb back down.

There are two principles of effective communication in Covey’s “Seven Habits of Highly Effective People”. Principle 5 is “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” People simply won’t listen if they don’t feel they have been heard. Reflect back to your partner, rephrasing what they have said, to show that you have been listening. When you have confirmed that you understand him and before he walks away, ask for a few more moments to talk about what you need. The fourth principle is “Win-win”. You have not reached perfect understanding until your needs are met too. Look for solutions that take care of both.

Resources:

Family Member Evaluation Form - Freedom of Mind by Steve Hassan
books by Steve Hassan
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (book) by Stephen R Covey
Ladder of Inference by Chris Argyris
Five ways to listen better (video) by Julian Treasure

Topics Covered

Help, I am in love with a....
Decision - Leave or Stay
Decision - Pick Your Strategy
Domestic Detente
Waking Up Strategies
Relationship Building
Community
Positive Influence
Coercion
Negotiating With Hostiles

Waking Up Strategies

This is my fifth blog in a series on loving and supporting a loved-one who is snared in a destructive life choice. This blog is heavily centred on the Witnesses which I have the most experience with. If you are dealing with another destructive group, you will have to research the origins and beliefs of your particular group.

You are in love with your Witness, you have a good relationship with open communication, and you are looking for strategies to help your partner “wake up” and exit the Witnesses. First of all - I take this suggestion from Steve Hassan - broaden your ambition to help your Witness awaken and think for him/herself. Don’t we all want to be alert, mindful, thoughtful, and self-determined? Our loved-ones deserve this.  

Before you start, you must understand the difference between the put-on cultic personality and the natural personality of your Witness. Read one of Steve Hassan’s books first. Get to know your partner and all the characteristics and features of her natural personality. This can be found in your partner’s background, even if she was born-in. What are her hobbies, interests, passions? Did she give up a particular talent in favor of the demands of the Jehovah’s Witnesses?

DON’T

• Freak out in front of your Witness over what you find out about the Watchtower Society. Your Witness has been warned to look out for this and to attribute this to the influence of Satan. Do you want your partner looking at you like you are the devil incarnate?
• Point out hypocrisy. The demands of the Watchtower Society are simply inhuman and most Witnesses skim around the rules as long as they don’t get caught. If you do call him on it, he will become more cultic and robotic. 

DO

• Figure out yourself what exactly is wrong with the Witnesses. Learn to spot logical fallacies and deceptive reasoning in their materials.
• Add activities to your week that have nothing to do with the Witnesses.
• Broaden your social contacts so she has more evidence of normal, and a new network to depend on when their Witness friends turn their backs.
• Pick issues that are important to your Witness. Have you done your basic review of your partner’s natural personality?
• Ask open-ended questions without a simple answer.
• Use neutral examples from groups that are not Witnesses such as the Catholics, Mormons, Amish and Scientologists.
• Allow silence to do it’s work. A silent Witness is a thinking Witness.
• Honor their thought-out opinions, even if he comes to a different conclusion than you. You may challenge his conclusion with a little socratic questioning, but retain respect always for his right to independent thought.
• Use humor to break down barriers.

Issues:

False prophet - http://www.jwfacts.com/watchtower/jehovahs-prophet.php
Cover up of sex abuse
Discouraging college education
Prohibition of blood - www.ajwrb.org
Shunning of former members

Resources:

Family Member Evaluation Form - Freedom of Mind by Steve Hassan
books by Steve Hassan
Rhetological Fallacies (poster) - Information Is Beautiful

All topics:

Help, I am in love with a....
Decision - Leave or Stay
Decision - Pick Your Strategy
Domestic Detente
Waking Up Strategies
Relationship Building
Community
Positive Influence
Coercion
Negotiating With Hostiles

Domestic Detente

This is blog four in a series on helping a loved-one involved in a destructive life choice.

Definition of detente:
1 : the relaxation of strained relations or tensions (as between nations); also : a policy promoting this.

Use the strategy of Domestic Detente when you can tolerate the craziness that comes with your partner's life choice. Here are some issues to negotiate with or work around your partner. The goal is to give yourself the necessary breathing room, keep the cultic part of your loved-one disarmed, and leave an open door if your partner starts to loosen up and consider a different life. My experience is mostly around living with Art, a Jehovah's Witness, so some of the advice and resources are specifically geared to that. Tailor the advice to what you are living.

Domestic Bliss

There is a natural personality and a cultic personality residing in your partner. Your goal in domestic detente is to keep the cultic personality calm and unthreatened so that the natural personality within can shine. Take some time to understand your partner’s natural personality so you can reinforce those special and unique qualities. Art, for instance, was raised by non-Witnesses and his parents enjoyed a healthy and productive marriage. He instinctively knows how to be a good husband. I remind him of those qualities so that he models that behavior, rather than the cultic demands as described in the Secret of Family Happiness book.

DO

• Complete the family member evaluation form produced by Steve Hassan. You don’t need to submit it or send any fees, but the exercise itself will give you insights into your partner.
• Celebrate all independent thinking.
• Reinforce breaks away from the society. For instance, if your partner skips a meeting, reassure that Jehovah still approves of your partner. There will be other meetings.
• Remind your partner that you will not oppose their participation with the Witnesses.
• It may be a peaceable option to make a pact not to bring up contentious issues (aside from life-threatening choices and child-rearing as described below).

DON’T

• Don’t allow the coercive organization or it's beliefs to become the battleground. The issue is larger. You want a partner who thinks for herself.
• There is no need to conform to the standards of submission as described in the Family Happiness book or any other coercive group just to get along. Allow your own personality to shine through and demand to be treated as an individual with hopes and dreams.
• Never point out hypocrisy. This has the opposite effect of driving your partner further in to cultic behavior.
• Don’t panic. Your fearful response will further drive your Witness in to cultic behavior. He has to believe that you are not a threat to his spirituality.

Resources:

The Secret of Family Happiness - published by the Watchtower Society
Family Member Evaluation Form - Freedom of Mind by Steve Hassan
books by Steve Hassan

Child-Rearing

In a divided household, the child is going to receive mixed messages. She will be exposed to ideas that outsiders, including you, are going to suffer repercussions for not joining. She may be pressured to abstain from seemingly innocuous activities like giving up birthdays, saluting the flag, participation in extracurricular school activities and holidays. Materials designed for divorced couples can help you, even if you continue together. Like divorced couples, you are negotiating with a partner with different views on raising your children. You want to provide a safe environment for the child while demonstrating that you are working together.

DO

• Add to his experiences. Expose him to other cultures, celebrate and support his hobbies
• Reassure him of your love, always, no matter what. Reassure him that you are confident that the world is essentially kind and just, even to outsiders, and that you have nothing to fear.
• Honor his decisions. You may ask why he thinks so, encouraging that independent thinking that will protect him from coercive techniques.
• Teach your child critical thinking skills, age-appropriate.
• Work out differences with your partner behind closed doors so the child perceives that you are working from a united front.

DON’T

• Don’t use your child as a double-agent, pumping her for information on your partner’s activities.
• Don’t allow her to play you against your partner. The two of you determine to give a united front on decisions.
• Don’t put her in a tug-of-war or ultimatum. “If you like Witnesses so much you can go live with your dad!”
• Never shun your child, and rebuke your partner in private if this is threatened.

Resources:

Teach Your Child How To Think by Edward De Bono ISBN 0140238301
Raising Resilient Children: Fostering Strength, Hope, and Optimism in Your Child – Sep 18 2002 by Robert Brooks (Author), Sam Goldstein (Author)
Teach Your Child the World Religions - TED Video by Dan Dennett
Because Life Goes On - Helping Children and Youth Live with Separation and Divorce - Government of Canada

Holidays and Visiting Relatives

Regardless of your partner’s sensibilities, you have a right to enjoy the holidays and visits with non-converted relatives. You need them. I would not force a cultist in to a situation where they are uncomfortable. This merely reinforces the cultic phobia. Go yourself if you have to. If the cultist loosens up later, you have the connections to help that happen.

Some Witnesses will compromise to varying degrees. Children may celebrate a “special day” before or after the anniversary, for instance. This holds true also for turkey at Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Clear year-round decorative lights might be tolerated over the season. Your partner may renege on former agreements however, if he/she seized with a fit of conscience.

Invitations to Join

There will be continuing pressure for you to join: to attend meetings or begin a bible study. In regard to meetings, I suggest you attend once in awhile. You won’t be possessed by demons and with a determination to keep independence of mind, you are not in danger of getting brainwashed yourself.

Follow a deliberately inconsistent and unreliable attendance pattern. Even two meetings in a row will falsely encourage the congregants that you are interested. You might be love-bombed at the Kingdom hall, reinforcing their delight in your attendance. I’ve been patted, touched by strangers in an attempt to connect. Boundaries are often disrespected. I cut this off at the pass by remaining standing until the service starts. That way I can back up if they get too close.
 
The service itself is boring, regimented. I have a driving need to keep my independence of mind during the meeting. I do this by taking a blank notebook and pen. I write on any subject that takes my fancy.
Even if you are not approached directly, your partner will be quizzed about you.

A passive-aggressive third-party approach is very common. These people with supposed interest in your welfare can contact you directly if they are really interested. See if they would like to go for coffee sometime. Insist on genuine, human interactions.

The bible (book) study is based on “What does the Bible Really Teach?” I suggest you review it ahead of time with an inquiring mind and make a list of questions and issues. Before agreeing to a study, ask that any question be addressed before moving on. You will be welcomed if you are perceived as compliant, and the study will be cancelled if your questions are too hard. I had a fundamental problem with obeying the bible blindly so my study did not last past four sessions.

Prohibition against Blood

This belief is potentially life-threatening so you should have a conversation with your Witness on how you will deal with medical emergencies. For self-protection, you should have a personal directive on file noting that you will accept a blood transfusion. Insist that the same be done to protect your children.

Watch the blood video with your partner, and prepare questions to discuss. There are omissions in the video, specifically that there is no alternative for blood in the case of some critical conditions, and that the choice to refuse blood may very well be life-threatening.

My compromise is that in a case where my husband is unconscious, I won’t advise his health providers about his stand on blood so that he receives critical care. On the other hand if he is conscious I won’t interfere with his choice, even if it is life-threatening. I would try and protect him from members of the Hospital Liaison Committee so that his choice truly is independent.

Resources:

www.ajwrb.org
No Blood - Medicine Meets the Challenge (DVD) - Watchtower Bible and Tract Society

All topics:

Help, I am in love with a....
Decision - Leave or Stay
Decision - Pick Your Strategy
Domestic Detente
Waking Up Strategies
Relationship Building
Community
Positive Influence
Coercion
Negotiating With Hostiles

Decision - Pick Your Strategy

This is my third blog in a series on how to help a loved-one ensnared in a damaging life choice. In my last blog I introduced a "decision tree", a diagram designed to help make difficult or complex decisions. As before, start on the green oval and ask yourself these questions.

One of the great joys I get from marriage is having a trusted confidante at my side. If for whatever reason you have lost the opportunity to have open and honest conversations about difficult subjects, then first work on getting that trust back. All the progress I have made with my husband stems from this trust. Over time the elders have proven not to have Art's best interests at heart and based on the trust we've developed, I convinced him that we could work out our problems without the elder's influence. I have my marriage back. 

All topics:

Help, I am in love with a....
Decision - Leave or Stay
Decision - Pick Your Strategy
Domestic Detente
Waking Up Strategies
Relationship Building
Community
Positive Influence
Coercion
Negotiating With Hostiles

Decision - Leave or Stay

This is the second blog in a series describing how to help a loved-one who is ensnared in a damaging life choice. My experience comes from being married to my husband Art, a Jehovah's Witness. At some point I had to ask myself these questions.

When faced with a complex and difficult choice, it is easy to become paralyzed by indecision. Unfortunately, indecision results in it's own issues, leaving you and your partner in limbo, problems unresolved. I created a "decision tree" designed to use logic to resolve a difficult decision. No matter how painful the answer may be, it can help cut through the emotion and face what needs to be done.

If diagrams are not your thing, put your finger on the green oval and follow the arrows. Answer each question and depending on our answer, follow the "yes" or "no" to the strategy. Each rectangle surrounded by a double bar will be described in detail in a future blog.

If you think I have missed a critical question or that your circumstances are unique, I am open to hearing from you. 

All topics:

Help, I am in love with a....
Decision - Leave or Stay
Decision - Pick Your Strategy
Domestic Detente
Waking Up Strategies
Relationship Building
Community
Positive Influence
Coercion
Negotiating With Hostiles

Help! I am in love with a.....

This week marks fifteen years I have been with my husband, Art, a Jehovah's Witness. His beliefs and the requirements of his religion (some of which I do not share) has resulted in differences from time to time. When I fell in love with this crazy, funny man I in my evangelical innocence believed my faith was superior and that in time he would come to believe as I did. He trusted that the same would happen to me. It was not to work out that way and I believe both of us are humbler for that discovery. I am far looser in my beliefs these days and would be happy to allow him the freedom to practice as he wants, except for the coercive elements of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, the governing organization directing the affairs of all Jehovah's Witnesses.

As part of my efforts to counteract these coercive practices, I've been involved for over a decade with the Ex-Jehovah's Witness community, and have fielded hundreds of inquiries from the lovelorn, "Help! I am in love with a Jehovah's Witness." Which begs the question, do we have the right to influence a partner away from their firmly held beliefs? Is it even possible? At what point do we decide that a loved-one's lifestyle or religious choice is damaging?

I still receive requests like these so I've decided to record a decade's worth of experience here. Along the way I'll answer these questions and maybe provide help, hope and direction for those in love with a partner ensnared in a damaging life choice. 

Damaging Life Choice

I believe membership in any religion or other organization that uses coercion to control member behavior and supersedes the needs of the organization above that of the individual members to the extent of personal harm, is a potentially damaging life choice. This may be a religious, cultic, marketing, or ponzi scheme.

Obsessive participation in a hobby (extreme sports) or recreational drug (duh) to the point where the person is risking life and limb and their closest relationships, is a potentially damaging life choice.

The person may need help to recognize the danger they are in, and the best people to help are those closest to them. A red flag I often find in propaganda (typically on page two or three) is a warning that those closest to the reader may react strongly against their choice to be involved. The advice in these materials is invariably to ignore these protests (possibly invoking Satan the deceiver). Sure enough, within a few days of a convert declaring themselves to their loved-ones the family indeed do freak out, and the convert receives their first confirmation that they are on the "right path". Sneaky.

The very first efforts of loved-ones instead drive the convert further in to their new-found beliefs. I will blog over the next few weeks on ways to gently draw the convert back to their natural selves, and how to prevent driving them deeper in to the snare.

Topics Covered

The topic headings I will cover in the coming week are:

Help, I am in love with a....
Decision - Leave or Stay
Decision - Pick Your Strategy
Domestic Detente
Waking Up Strategies
Relationship Building
Community
Positive Influence
Coercion
Negotiating With Hostiles

2014 Review

As it happens sometimes, I am behind in my annual greeting to friends and family. I've been thinking about you though, and imagining how I might sum up this year. Because it's been a doozy.

Imagine the feeling after a particularly good work-over by your favourite massage therapist/physiotherapist/chiropractor. Perhaps they found that stubborn knot and worked it out. Something that was tight and painful is suddenly released. You sit up and give yourself a gentle stretch, and now you can move! Oh, the freedom.

That about sums up what this year has been like for me. Experiencing a life-changing surgery and the correspondingly significant weight loss has lifted a painful burden I was barely aware I was carrying.Through the year I progressed from not-falling-down, to a twenty-one day treadmill challenge (offered by my fitness instructor Angie), my first 5K walk for the Pregnancy Care Centre's Walk for Life, and my first walk after surgery, a 5K walk at the CIBC Run for the Cure. After that walk, barely winded, I needed a fresh challenge so after some thought I signed up for the Running Room's Learn to Run program. In eight weeks through the dead of winter, I progressed from one minute running to twenty minutes, or 2.5 K of running.

Art has followed this transformation with bemusement. He got inspired early in the year to join a fitness club and sign up for personal training. I've continued as he has slid back in to genteel semi-retirement.I've come to appreciate how his plain acceptance is a gift all by itself. Art and Crystal also helped coordinate a move back to our old neighbourhood, which just happened to be right after surgery. All I could do was supervise. We now have room for an impressive set of fitness equipment in our basement recreation room. 

In August mom passed away, necessitating a trip to Vancouver. Thank you dad, for the road trip. Four days of touring and talking, unforgettable. Sheila and I teamed up to put the apartment in order and gather up family mementos (especially the photographs). We do work together so very well.


Naomi and I squeezed in a pumpkin carving and jelly-making in to our busy schedules.

My greatest cheerleader, my daughter, has worried over some of my choices. She was opposed to the surgery, preferring I lose weight naturally. She also feared injury when I decided to begin running. The running class was an appeasement, as to learn how to run without causing injury.

In November I organized a one-derland party at the local trampoline park to celebrate achieving a weight under 200 pounds.

I am me in a different body and a different sort of life. I have energy and confidence for new projects, and I look forward to greater challenges with the company of my niece this coming year.

Moving Meditation

I've got to capture this idea in the book I am reading now, Meditation and the Martial Arts (Studies in Religion and Culture  Dec 11, 2003 by Michael L. Raposa and Gary L. Ebersole. It speaks to the idea I picked up fresh (fresh for me) from Haidt last year, about the relationship between the rational mind and our unconscious.

I am on page 56 where the author begins to explain Daoist beliefs describing, "The advice supplied to rulers by the Dao de jing can be applied to the governance of a 'country' existing either without or within...Sun's philosophizing about the deeper meaning...[are vague]...no doubt appropriately since the Daoist classics teach that the Dao itself is dark and vague and best described 'without words'..."

Here the internal landscape is described as a country, its citizens sometimes living in harmony and at other times not so much. I get it. I have a deeply analytical side as well as creative, and conflict can occur when both minds seek dominance on a project. Hesitation, doubt, and even "freezing" can occur as a result. Not so much now in my mature years, as my contrasting talents have divided activity based on ability. My internal landscape, at least, is at peace, even if it may appear I am making abrupt shifts in direction.

To free my creative side for action, I must suspend the intellectual chatter. That sort of commentary tempts my intellectual side to take over. I know this silent ability exists, but the very act of talking about it subsumes it.

It is pleasing to see this idea expressed again, confirmed and reinforced, in Raposa's book. I am also intrigued by the idea of active meditation through movement. I am pretty sure I've been a closed hyperactive these many years, slowing myself down with weight and carbohydrate loading. With the weight gone, I must be moving, doing something. I continue to seek out new activities to keep me occupied. Fridays is Yoga-Chi night with Paul Yapp. I have noted that the movements themselves lend themselves to a meditative state, and this book pleasingly confirms my instincts.

I don't have to sit still to meditate!