12 years of marriage as Catholics, my husband now wants to convert to being Muslim! Help!

[Mariem2]

I wonder if people are jumping the gun a little here. The Muslim religion should be respected. It sounds to me like the husband is getting a lot of pressure from his family and that he feels torn between the two religions.

I’m not sure why you would want to leave your husband if you love him. Doesn’t getting a lawyer, getting a divorce, and running away with the children add insult to injury?

This is a very difficult situation, but adults have been known to change religions. I have been to a Muslim country, and I think the call to prayer is quite charming. Does God really care if we pray sitting up, kneeling down, or bending over and touching the floor?

I think you should continue to go to Mass yourself. I don’t think it would be wrong to accompany your husband to the mosque as long as you have been to Mass.

It is probably prudent to keep religious pictures out of Facebook if his family will see them there.

If you and your children end up physically abused because you went to Mass, then things are bad enough to do what some of the other posters suggested.

That Muslim country must have been in Disneyland if you think men and women were praying together in a mosque. The call to prayer is quite charming when heard in the distance as you relax in the sunshine, drink in hand. Not so charming in the early morning when the crackling noise from the loudspeaker atop the nearby mosque disturbs your sleep. (I, too, have been to Muslim countries).

Getting a lawyer doesn’t mean getting a divorce. It’s about getting all the information the OP needs to safeguard her interests. What are the chances of her husband deciding in a couple of years that divorce and remarriage to a Muslim woman is the best way he can fullfil his obligation to raise his son to be a good Muslim? Shouldn’t the OP be prepared for that? A man who tried to coerce her into converting to Islam despite having committed to a Catholic marriage isn’t one to be trusted because he subsequently agreed to allow her and her daughters attend Mass. He’s likely to sing a different tune when the son is old enough to understand what Mass is about.

Are you aware that the travel section of the US government website actually has a section devoted to international child abduction? Jumping the gun, maybe, but unwise to dismiss the possibility. You’re correct that hiding US passports is pointless, especially if the children are eligible for Saudi passports.

 

[AmesLouise]

Thankfully my children are not able to obtain Saudi passports, b/c my husband is currently here with a “supervisory of the state” basis due to breaking the immigration laws quite a long time ago. He can leave the country at any time, but he can never return. He has no country, since he was born in Palestine (which isn’t considered a country). My husband does not have a travel document at all.
Also, on all three of my kids birth certificates he listed his place of birth as here in the US, not where he was “really” from. So, thankfully that one is in my favor.
I don’t believe his lies were done to intentionaly hurt me in any way, as it was to “escape” his forced life in Saudi Arabia. His family starteid to make their appearance in our lives almost 2 years ago. And even more over the past year.
I really feel my husband is torn between his family and me in regards to being pulled back to Islam vs his life here with me as a Catholic.
I have been VERY happily married to my husband and he is a wonderful father. Never once have I ever felt uncomfortable around him until my son was born… This isn’t him at all. I don’t feel that BEING Muslim is Satanic in anyway. I’m sure its beautiful, but it just isn’t me.
I will live and die a Catholic!

 

[Mariem2]

There’s a lot in your favour if he doesn’t have a passport. I’m sorry if I’m undermining your confidence in your husband, but if you weren’t the person involved wouldn’t you be sceptical?

Will your husband ever be able to get a US passport through naturalisation? The reason I ask is that my sister’s colleague was in a relationship with a Palestinian who had no passport. He came here to study medicine, qualified and stayed. He lived with this woman for years and was like a father to her child (not his). Eventually he got a passport through naturalisation. She, foolishly, thought they would be married some day and plagued government departments and politicians in support of his passport application. Very shortly after getting the passport, he moved to be closer to his relatives in another country and she was to follow him. He contacted her to tell her that his relatives had chosen a Muslim wife for him and that was the last she ever heard of him.

In England, there is a term “visa geezer” used to describe men who meet and marry European women with the aim of getting residency and eventually a passport. Many of those men live a lie for years. That’s the reason some of us who aren’t from the USA are so suspicious.

I’m sure your husband is a good man and he sounds like a good father. Trouble is that he comes from a completely different culture. I hope that some day you can look back on this episode and laugh. You seem to have a good head on your shoulders, so should be able to cope. Good luck and God bless.

 

[KathleenGee]

Severus…expected that. You have no idea to what I have been exposed to, or its scope.

One of the worst things is to know abuse and then deny nothing has happened to abused people. Open your eyes.

Likewise look at the background who voted for this current administration.

I remember trying to tell people over 30 years ago the fraud I saw…and the deliberate intentions…and then being accused of being racist. The race card isn’t working anymore.

You don’t intimidate me. The more the truth is brought out in our country and elsewhere, the more these problems can be addressed. Mistreating people and using them are very wrong, and it affects so many lives around them.

This problem is not just with women who marry Muslims, the abuse of citizenship and using people for monetary gain is happening in all levels of societies.

 

[KathleenGee]

AmesLouise, you are not bringing Satan into your family.

But you are dealing with fraud, with bait and switch…due to your husband’s vulnerability, confusion regarding his own identity, and his family’s increasing pressure. When a Muslim leaves Islam, depending on which branch he is in, he himself could be killed.

He has to face the injustice his family is imposing on him. Could you find an imam who is sympathetic to your cause???

In the meantime, I located the book, and would advise you to consider getting it, and then ask your pastor to see the points St. Francis drew on with hopes it could help free your husband of these pressures.

“St. Francis of Assisi and Conversion of Muslims”, by Frank M. Rega.

Seeing your spouse as a property is very dangerous. When someone sees another, usually sexual/marital partner, as property, and uses intimidation and fear towards the spouse, in this case a Wahabi family, there is justified concern that the children could be kidnapped.

Property, fraud, intimidation, break in relationship…these are all pathological and set the ground work for kidnapping.

Family ties are blood ties, and blood is thicker than water, what a psychiatric social worker advised me at the beginning of my marriage. We met through our parish, and she had worked with that ethnic population for many years, and told me the daughters-in-law become so subservient to the clan. I have seen movies where the daughters in law are emotionally and psychologically brutalized by family members, including women members of the families. As their leading Catholic cardinal said of his own country, the light of the Gospel has not yet the plight of women in that country. And the country is poor.

How a man treats his wife seems to reflect how his country is, and I have seen this in other countries, having worked with indingenous people.

Likewise, there is great work to Christianize immigrants who come here, especially those who state they are Catholic. Most of the times, they are simply nominal, …baptized…with no catechesis.

I have been working for over 30 years to bring Christ into the family, and there is great growth in goodness and in becoming more humane, and becoming more contributing to our own society. I have sisters-in-law who were also great blessings to me, and this is the work not of just one person, but of other extended family members as well.

 

[MaryLouItalia]

This problem is not just with women who marry Muslims,

Here in Italy we have the same problems also between European nations above all with Germany (usually if the mother is German). Also if we are in the European Union, we have different legislative systems = problems.

 

[severus68]

Severus…expected that. You have no idea to what I have been exposed to, or its scope.

One of the worst things is to know abuse and then deny nothing has happened to abused people. Open your eyes.

Likewise look at the background who voted for this current administration.

I remember trying to tell people over 30 years ago the fraud I saw…and the deliberate intentions…and then being accused of being racist. The race card isn’t working anymore.

You don’t intimidate me. The more the truth is brought out in our country and elsewhere, the more these problems can be addressed. Mistreating people and using them are very wrong, and it affects so many lives around them.

This problem is not just with women who marry Muslims, the abuse of citizenship and using people for monetary gain is happening in all levels of societies.

Your bitter experience with your husband and his relatives does not justify your condemning non-white people.

I am not from the US so your issues with the current administration and your gripe with immigrations are not of interest to me especially as I see a clear bias.

How am I trying to intimidate you?

 

[KathleenGee]

Severicus…Absolutely not! You don’t know what I am talking about or whom I am referring to, or the problems we are experiencing all over our country.

The use of the race card can’t intimidate anyone anymore, even Afro Americans are sick of it.

You deny sinful behavior, you become an accomplice to the abuse.

 

[KathleenGee]

Maryloulita.

Yes…it is happening in many places, and I think it reflects to me the lack of faith and materialism and growing chaos of clashes of different peoples and cultures beyond what they can handle and cope with.

It is essentially a spiritual problem.

I hope and pray the new Holy Father will work to help people throughout the world to refind their focus and purpose in life.

 

[severus68]

Severicus…Absolutely not! You don’t know what I am talking about or whom I am referring to, or the problems we are experiencing all over our country.

The use of the race card can’t intimidate anyone anymore, even Afro Americans are sick of it.

You deny sinful behavior, you become an accomplice to the abuse.

Please read again, I am not from the US. I could well say that you are obsessed with race. Sins are not committed by just particular races. I am an accomplice???

 

[KathleenGee]

It is obvious you don’t live here.

I don’t want to defend myself but I have witnessed so many times acts of racism against people of white skin and have heard too many remarks behind their backs.

I am a native Seattleite, and the charism of the Church there is essentially Irish. In all my years living there, I never heard any white person ever say anything derogatory about other races behind my back.

I have seen alot of dishonesty and abuse of citizenship, theft from employers…and know so many Anglo Americans that have compassion for people of color.

So in the USA, there is massive abuse of citizenship by those coming in the past 40 years or so. And there is a hidden resentment towards white people because of the so called ‘anglo white man’. I know a lawyer who told me he has experienced the greatest malignment…

He is white, he is a successful businessman, and he is a most devout Roman Catholic.

We are sick of the spin. And it has being discussed on a few news stations about the neo Marxist spin of setting blacks and other minorities…of giving free citizenship to get votes…while in the meantime sponsoring and promoting abortion and contraception aimed at the minorities to reduce populations.

I know immigrants who are good and lawful and they told me the USA has such low standards expecting the least from people, our test scores of minors low, our teens having 25% sexually transmitted diseases, we living in a smut culture…and it is no wonder that immigrants coming here, likewise do not want to take on the stereotype sexually lax white culture.

The working and middle class familes with both parents raising their kids are really the ones who are upholding traditional morality.

Everytime people promote traditional values of hard work and self reliance, and the degrees of thought and practice in these values, they are now being defined as racist. You bring in a communitarian lifestyle…over hardwork and smarts, you bring in socialism and its new, created bad guys.

What happens though with labelling and voting for the payback and race baiting…is that you end up voting in a type of government you left.

You just come here for economics and benefits, and hidden resentments, and not what you can contribute and integrate to society–you end making a country – a generation away, into a country you gave up on and left-- because of no development or opportunity.

Get it???

You are the one who is race baiting.

 

[CrazyRachel]

After 12 years of knowing my husband as Catholic, my husband insists that he is now Muslim and that the kids will be too. He refuses to allow me to take the children to church, have a cross in the home or to do the sign of the cross. I just had a baby boy 3.5 months ago and this is when it all began. He refuses to let me baptize him and I am devistated. Nor will he let our 6 year old go through with her First Holy Communion next year.

I’m so lost right now and devistated by his irrational behvior.

My husband lied to me about being Catholic all these years. I have just found out by his family that he was born and raised Muslim. All his family live in Saudi Arabia and over the past year they have slowlly started to enter into our lives. I’m devistated that the foundation of our marriage was based on a lie. I’m doing everything I can to maintain happiness for my childrens sake, but my husband wants me to completely end the catholiciscm for the kids and begin the pathway to Islam. He wants me to do the same and I am adimant that I will not be open minded about this. Please help in anyway you can

Oh my goodness my darling, Im praying desperately for you. I cannot begin to imagine your pain. Stick to your guns and do not be open to change. As some people have already suggested, get a lawey at once! Also i would say go to your priest and have your baby baptised as soon as possible as all your other children have been and ask your priest if he will help your daughter to recieve communion. i love you my Catholic sister.

 

[severus68]

It is obvious you don’t live here.

I don’t want to defend myself but I have witnessed so many times acts of racism against people of white skin and have heard too many remarks behind their backs.

I am a native Seattleite, and the charism of the Church there is essentially Irish. In all my years living there, I never heard any white person ever say anything derogatory about other races behind my back.

I have seen alot of dishonesty and abuse of citizenship, theft from employers…and know so many Anglo Americans that have compassion for people of color.

So in the USA, there is massive abuse of citizenship by those coming in the past 40 years or so. And there is a hidden resentment towards white people because of the so called ‘anglo white man’. I know a lawyer who told me he has experienced the greatest malignment…

He is white, he is a successful businessman, and he is a most devout Roman Catholic.

We are sick of the spin. And it has being discussed on a few news stations about the neo Marxist spin of setting blacks and other minorities…of giving free citizenship to get votes…while in the meantime sponsoring and promoting abortion and contraception aimed at the minorities to reduce populations.

I know immigrants who are good and lawful and they told me the USA has such low standards expecting the least from people, our test scores of minors low, our teens having 25% sexually transmitted diseases, we living in a smut culture…and it is no wonder that immigrants coming here, likewise do not want to take on the stereotype sexually lax white culture.

The working and middle class familes with both parents raising their kids are really the ones who are upholding traditional morality.

Everytime people promote traditional values of hard work and self reliance, and the degrees of thought and practice in these values, they are now being defined as racist. You bring in a communitarian lifestyle…over hardwork and smarts, you bring in socialism and its new, created bad guys.

What happens though with labelling and voting for the payback and race baiting…is that you end up voting in a type of government you left.

You just come here for economics and benefits, and hidden resentments, and not what you can contribute and integrate to society–you end making a country – a generation away, into a country you gave up on and left-- because of no development or opportunity.

Get it???

You are the one who is race baiting.

It is obvious who is race baiting. Please watch your tone. I have no interest in responding to you anymore.

 

[rtechie]

Why in the world would she take her child through such a dangerous route to Turkey if she wasn’t desperate to get out.

She obviously trusted her husband enough to encourage her daughter to embrace her persian roots and travel to a country that had just gone through an incredibly radical revolution that is completely totalitarian in its patriarchy.If he wasn’t the man she made him out to be and loved his family enough…why would it be okay for him to hold her and her daughter there against their will?
Dr. Mahmoody denies this ever happened and, again, the only evidence is her word.

 

[Kelfa28]

We only have her word for it that even happened. She could have easily taken a commercial flight.

Not without Mahtob she couldn’t have. So she flies out and leaves her daughter behind in a country he daughter isn’t familiar with? In a regime that teaches children “death to America?”

the revolution hadn’t “just happened”, and the family didn’t travel to Iran to “embrace their roots”, Sayed Mahmoody was a doctor and the family moved to Iran so he could help victims of the Iran-Iraq war, many years after the revolution. Of course the movie left this out because it makes him look good.

I never said that they went there to “embrace their roots” at all. I said Betty just encouraged her daughter to embrace her persian roots…I didn’t say that was the reason they went.
They went on a two week vacation to visit family on Moody’s insisting. He stayed to be a doctor.
Just because I may have got the timing wrong doesn’t change the fact that Iran is a deeply troubled country. The revolution changed absolutely everything…making it very dangerous for an American woman to visit. Their daughter is her husband’s property. She couldn’t take her home even if she wanted to.
She was being held their against her will…based on the regime itself and the fact that her husband held her daughter there and refused to let them go home.
She didn’t want to be there and I don’t blame her. It’s not unreasonable for an American woman to want to return home…away from a country that is so hateful and suspicious of Americans and women.

Why would an American woman be perfectly fine raising her American daughter in a regime that is so anti-american and anti-westernization? She wanted out for her and her daughter and her husband wouldn’t grant that. He held them their against her will.

If she could easily fly out…why didn’t she and her daughter do so?
Oh, that’s right…she wouldn’t abandon her daughter to an abusive man in an abusive country and since her daughter couldn’t leave…they had to find another way.

Mahmoody denies this ever happened and, again, the only evidence is her word.

And her parents, and the state department, and the embassy in Turkey, and the smugglers that helped get her out of the country, and the friends she made over their…while living in Iraq for two years…oh…and her daughter.
There are plenty of people who could have been found. She references them in her book.

It’s been 30 years…so many of those people are no longer alive…but they did exist…you cannot say that it was only her word.

Why hasn’t her daughter come out and say that none of this is true. She was 6 at the time and could have easily remembered details. She hasn’t come out to say that her mother was lying and her dad told the truth.

 

[jediliz]

OP, I would pray the Rosary if you don’t already make that a daily devotion, especially since you said your husband said the children liked the islam praying? Also, I’d have a lawyer on standby in case you need one. Make sure to keep your pastor of your parish informed of your situation in case it changes. You have a right to raise your children Catholic, he can NOT take that away from you…this is NOT Saudi Arabia where Christianity is banned. There might be a liturgy of the hours (like shorter or easier to understand) for children, maybe that would be something to teach your older daughter. Teach your older daughter Rosary prayers if she doesn’t already know them and get her praying with you. Continue to encourage them in their faith of Catholicism.

I would be on guard with what your husband teaches the children about Islam…especially anything related to how they say that Jesus is only “a prophet” in Islam.

 

[joanofarc2008]

Get a lawyer. Pray. See a priest. During a period of marital turmoil involving some mental health issues one of my friends got a post-nuptial agreement - basically a legal contract similar to a prenup outlining some things that would happen in case of divorce, but not about property but for the protection of the children. This may be something that you may consider depending on what your state’s laws are. I am thinking some things such as not having passports issued and religious/educational issues may be addressed. BTW my friend and her husband are still married and doing better than ever. The kids are great - they were separated at the time. This agreement allowed them some ground rules to come back together in a very tenuous situation. God bless you.

 

[joanofarc2008]

Thankfully my children are not able to obtain Saudi passports, b/c my husband is currently here with a “supervisory of the state” basis due to breaking the immigration laws quite a long time ago. He can leave the country at any time, but he can never return. He has no country, since he was born in Palestine (which isn’t considered a country). My husband does not have a travel document at all.
Also, on all three of my kids birth certificates he listed his place of birth as here in the US, not where he was “really” from. So, thankfully that one is in my favor.
I don’t believe his lies were done to intentionaly hurt me in any way, as it was to “escape” his forced life in Saudi Arabia. His family starteid to make their appearance in our lives almost 2 years ago. And even more over the past year.
I really feel my husband is torn between his family and me in regards to being pulled back to Islam vs his life here with me as a Catholic.
I have been VERY happily married to my husband and he is a wonderful father. Never once have I ever felt uncomfortable around him until my son was born… This isn’t him at all. I don’t feel that BEING Muslim is Satanic in anyway. I’m sure its beautiful, but it just isn’t me.
I will live and die a Catholic!

This is raising whole new red flags to me on another level. You have a man from Saudi who entered into the country illegally, lied about his religion, blended into a Christian family, even attending Mass, who now is back in touch with fundamentalist family members from Saudi who are most likely influencing his behavior to coerce which means they are most likely from more militant sects of Islam. You may need to prayerfully discern whether or not his motivations are something for the authorities to sort out. I have known a few Muslim families - some I even served with and none of them ever forced their religion on others. They never lied about it either.

 

[KathleenGee]

Joanofarc…exactly. Duplicity. And this can lead to other things.

Likewise when serving the missions, I was in an African country that went Marxist. The very first day of independence instead of rejoicing they are no longer a European colony, instead the headlines blared, “America is the Enemy of the World”. This came from the Soviet Union. Years later I was reunited with a priest who worked there with me. He said the people could not go from town to town without a pass. The Africans never absorbed this propaganda, but it is already gone throughout the world.

The race relations in the USA have had this problem and now it is in tv commentaries with open panels…We are not duped anymore. But this idea of entering into the West illegally, the blaming of white people for the world’s problems, is part of the errors Mary of Fatima warned about…that Russia would spread her errors throughout the world. The use if disinformation and media is blatant but it is also being revealed by most media networks here.

**AmesLouise, **I just received the book on Francis and the Muslims. He gained the Sultan’s respect for not being afraid, and enduring whippings and verbal abuse, and threats to kill him. He had actually wanted to die a martyr.

So I think the first tact in this is, as Jesus said, ‘Do not be afraid!’. We are to place ourselves as if in a cell and be totally focused on Jesus and to not let anything disturb us. I had to learn this. Pray the Blessed Mother surround your heart and protect it from fear.

In a number of ways, I think your husband has a sense of reason. I will share with you ideas that come along…I see Francis as the carnate point of renewal and also new relationship with the Muslim people. We must pray for Pope Francis who is likewise opening doors of hope for our restoration of sacred unity with the Orthodox.

Some day Mother Mary will convert the Muslims. Turn to her. Place your husband in Mary’s heart. Bind him to her heart with the rosary.

 

[joanofarc2008]

Joanofarc…exactly. Duplicity. And this can lead to other things.

Likewise when serving the missions, I was in an African country that went Marxist. The very first day of independence instead of rejoicing they are no longer a European colony, instead the headlines blared, “America is the Enemy of the World”. This came from the Soviet Union. Years later I was reunited with a priest who worked there with me. He said the people could not go from town to town without a pass. The Africans never absorbed this propaganda, but it is already gone throughout the world.

The race relations in the USA have had this problem and now it is in tv commentaries with open panels…We are not duped anymore. But this idea of entering into the West illegally, the blaming of white people for the world’s problems, is part of the errors Mary of Fatima warned about…that Russia would spread her errors throughout the world. The use if disinformation and media is blatant but it is also being revealed by most media networks here.

**AmesLouise, **I just received the book on Francis and the Muslims. He gained the Sultan’s respect for not being afraid, and enduring whippings and verbal abuse, and threats to kill him. He had actually wanted to die a martyr.

So I think the first tact in this is, as Jesus said, ‘Do not be afraid!’. We are to place ourselves as if in a cell and be totally focused on Jesus and to not let anything disturb us. I had to learn this. Pray the Blessed Mother surround your heart and protect it from fear.

In a number of ways, I think your husband has a sense of reason. I will share with you ideas that come along…I see Francis as the carnate point of renewal and also new relationship with the Muslim people. We must pray for Pope Francis who is likewise opening doors of hope for our restoration of sacred unity with the Orthodox.

Some day Mother Mary will convert the Muslims. Turn to her. Place your husband in Mary’s heart. Bind him to her heart with the rosary.

Yes, I don’t want to question anyone’s motivations too far as I am only an internet observer but I here these red flags and I stopped thinking of his intentions in the marriage.