Advice for converting my husband?

[LongingForLight]

St. Francis said something like, “Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.”

I am using this advice as my guide for my efforts to convert my agnostic husband. I am making good progress on part 1 (preach at all times) , but think I will be needing part 2 (use words) in the next couple of years.

The problem is that my husband tends to have an avoidant temperament. He will rarely confront an issue until the need for change is immediate and blatant.

DH has a positive attitude towards the Catholic church and supports and encourages me in my faith. For example, he attends church with me and our children and reminds me to pray with them at meals. He responds positively to my spiritual growth, and clearly sees it as good. He agreed to me seeking his conversion without pressuring him before we married.

However, he does not believe in God, and does not pray with us except very rarely. He gets irritated with discussions of his faith and his fate in a way I have only seen him do when he was avoiding talking about our marriage problems, showing some level of intent to avoid the subject (probably sub-conscious).

I have been praying for him, working on my own continuing conversion, and helping my children develop their faith. I have also been inviting him to participate when I think such invitations will not be perceived as pressure. After resolving our communication issues, our marriage has grown rapidly and then slowed its growth again. I believe our marriage’s growth will be limited by our lack of unity in faith until my husband begins to seek spiritual growth.

What are your thoughts? How do you move the conversation over a person’s conversion from your example to their own salvation, if the person is deliberately avoiding considering the matter in depth?

So, I started this post with no ideas.  As often happens, while seeking to explain the situation to others I came to better understand it myself.  Here are the ideas I came up with while writing:

I might ask him if he objects to me consulting with a priest on his behalf; I do not want him to feel that I am conspiring against him, and making it something he could prevent will give him a chance to participate, albeit passively (by not objecting), in his own conversion.  This tactic (asking him for permission to seek his conversion in a certain way) has worked well in the past.  Of course, if he objects, then I would need to respect his objection - so I would want any request to be well-worded and non-threatening (but accurate).  Our parish priest could be useful both as a resource for myself, for ideas, and as an authority on faith.  DH has shown signs of responding well to authority in the past.

Another idea might be to start introducing him (indirectly) to relevant Scriptures or church teachings that are related to attitudes that might be hindering his conversion.  For example, to counter his perfectionism I could introduce to our household Psalms of repentance, Scriptures on man's sinfullness and Christ's redemption of us all, cover the sins of great Biblical figures, and introduce church teachings on sin, baptism, and reconciliation.  I could do this by trying my hand at songwriting, making cross-stitch projects for myself, teaching these things to our children, and seeing if he will discuss any aspects of them with me (especially anything that might confuse me).  

Also, I don't mention RCIA for him because (a) he isn't interested (I have suggested it) and (b) I've helped out with the RCIA program before, and doubt he would get much out of it.  He has most, if not all, of the information they share.  And he isn't the type to find it useful as a forum for asking questions.  Generally, he dislikes classroom environments or group discussions.  He's more likely to get benefit from meeting with a priest.  Also, in this corner of the country (USA, Pacific NW) I'm concerned about the orthodoxy of the classes.

 

[Little_Mary]

Just pray. My husband was baptist when I married him and he let me know in no uncertain terms when we married that he would never convert to Catholicism. I agreed - as long as he was OK with chidren being Catholic and he would support that - he agreed.

I don’t know what eventually made him decide to convert, but I never pressured him, asked him about it, argued, provided literature, or anything like that. I prayed for his conversion every time I prayed. I very definitely preached without using words.

I don’t think I was the main person in his life to make him want to convert - we had a priest in our home town that he really liked, and he admires my father, who is a devout Catholic. He was also very impressed with the conviction that Sunday Mass was not optional - even when traveling, or bad weather, or mild sickness.

He converted 5 years after we were married - all of his own accord. It is truly a very personal decision - you and your relationship with God.

Anyway, I am rambling. Just thought I’d share my experience. Just pray. And love him.

 

[sheilathebard]

I vote for “no pressure” … you may be right that your marriage won’t grow the way it needs to until he starts thinking of his spiritual growth … but that is HIS decision, and if he doesn’t do it, there isn’t necessarily anything you can do.

Teaching the children is a great way to let him hear the great things the Faith has to offer without nagging him personally about it.

I just don’t think, hearing his personality, that anything from you is going to change his point of view much. However, if he’s attending church, he may very well hear something that will affect him. It’s also great if you can go, as a family, to other activities like parish missions, holy hours, or outreach.

There was a lady in our church whose husband was an atheist. He told her when they got married that he would never become Catholic, ever, and please not to talk to him about it. She prayed and prayed, but honored his wishes and didn’t try to talk him into it.

One year he decided to go to the church’s RCIA class, just to figure out what exactly she believed (he didn’t want to ask her, because he was afraid she would try to convert him).

That spring, when the candidates for baptism are first called up before the parish, this woman’s husband got up from his pew where he was sitting with the kids and came forward. He had decided to convert earlier that year, and didn’t want to tell her about it until he’d actually concretely made the decision. Somehow any involvement of his wife put him off, but the men of the parish had befriended him in RCIA, and he was more willing to hear it from them.

He converted after they’d been married for at least fifteen years.

So don’t give up hope just because he doesn’t want to talk about it. But remember, if he converts, it will be in his time and God’s time, not necessarily when you would like.

 

[Ross09]

I prayed for my husband’s conversion every Mass when the priest lifted the Host to consecrate it, a very powerful moment to pray. I said “Lord, if it is your will, ignite a fire within my husband that may only be quenched by finding you.” In the meantime, I catechized myself and tried to live my faith as an example to my spouse. Within two years he converted and I believe he is a more devout Catholic than I am. Now I look up to him as spiritual inspiration.

God is good. I will pray for you and your husband.

 

[Jennifer123]

I prayed for my husband’s conversion every Mass when the priest lifted the Host to consecrate it, a very powerful moment to pray. I said “Lord, if it is your will, ignite a fire within my husband that may only be quenched by finding you.” In the meantime, I catechized myself and tried to live my faith as an example to my spouse. Within two years he converted and I believe he is a more devout Catholic than I am. Now I look up to him as spiritual inspiration.

God is good. I will pray for you and your husband.

I made a terrible mistake the first few years we were married and I went through my reconversion - I did exactly what the OP posted in the second part of her post.

It wasn’t until I kept my mouth shut and just worked on my own daily conversion, all the while praying very hard for my husband, that he came around, thanks be to God! He was baptized last Easter after 9 years of marriage. Up to that point I was resigned that he would consider Catholicism at his (and God’s ) own time, which could be never, but that was between him and God and I had to be happy with that. As much as I love my husband, I will make sure my kids know about not being “unequally yoked” if marriage is their calling.

Even though he is now Catholic, things aren’t perfect. There is still a gap between our spiritualities that I wish weren’t there - the OP’s husband and mine will always need our prayers.