Advice needed: asking significant other to convert

[JSSD]

I would recommend that you not ask or pressure him to convert. In my experience, most priests do not recommend this anyway. I was not Catholic when my wife and I married. I did agree to raise our children as Catholics and attended mass with my wife over the years. my wife never once even mentioned to me the possibility of me becoming Catholic, although Im sure she prayed for it. I eventually entered RCIA and became Catholic on my own time (14 years into our marriage). Next Easter will be my 10 year anniversary of my conversion. My point with this is that this is a very personal decision for your significant other and he should not be pressured to make it by you (or your family).

I wish you the best. Know that others are praying for you.

This reads a lot like my own life, although I was 10 years into marriage and have been Catholic for about 5 minutes. (OK, 5 months)

I would let him know that you would love to see him attend RCIA classes with you. You could say that you want to learn your faith better. And it could help him learn more about your faith and take it from there. It never hurts to ask him if he would attend with you.

That might have done it sooner for me, but honestly I wasn’t even considering when we were married. I was Lutheran and quite fine with it. I honestly might still be if it weren’t for geography.

 

[theCrow]

My boyfriend and I have been dating close to 2 years, and we are both moving towards marriage. I’m confident in every way that he is right for me- his values, his morals, his temperament, and his background match mine perfectly and he is very supportive of my faith. He has respected my boundaries (ie: no sex before marriage, not living together before marriage, etc) and has accompanied me to church, stations of the cross, and has been reading books on Catholicism. I consider him the result of many novenas praying for someone right for me. This is the first serious relationship for each of us.

His parents are both former Catholics, now in their 50’s, and told me at dinner that they blamed it on Catholic schools. I went to 12 years of Catholic school and had an excellent experience, and find that that seems to be more of an excuse than anything. Consequently, he and his brothers were never baptized or given a religious background beyond ‘watered down Christianity’. They determined that their children can pick a religion when they are older, and as such, all of them are spiritual without religion.

I’ve told my parents that he is not Catholic, and my father is extremely disappointed, to the point where he overlooks his good qualities, and minimizes the relationship. My mother sees this as an obstacle that must be overcome prior to marriage and children.

With RCIA starting in the fall, I’m wondering if it would be wise to ask someone to look into conversion. It seems so personal and private, that I feel that leading my example and praying is the best course of action.

Does anyone have advice or experience? Thank you all for reading and God bless! Sorry for the length!

to the OP:

1. How old are both of you?
2. How would you feel if your BF wanted you to convert (or become less religious)

honestly, most people do not marry their first love, but rather fall in love many times and a person’s views/life really change from 18 into your 20’s and even more into your 30’s. Take your time, let the relationship grow/evolve and continue to COMMUNICATE and ask questions. All the best!

 

[styrgwillidar]

Love conquers all.

Nope.

 

[DOJ96]

It sounds to me like he may already be considering it - he attends Mass and other events with you and is open to raising a potential family in the Church. Certainly don’t pressure him, but you could approach him by just asking him if he has considered it. Let him know that you support him either way, but that you would sponsor him in RCIA if he wants to attend (either in earnest to convert or just to learn). He sounds like a great guy

 

[angeline15]

to the OP:

1. How old are both of you?
2. How would you feel if your BF wanted you to convert (or become less religious)

honestly, most people do not marry their first love, but rather fall in love many times and a person’s views/life really change from 18 into your 20’s and even more into your 30’s. Take your time, let the relationship grow/evolve and continue to COMMUNICATE and ask questions. All the best!

We are both in our late 20s. I dated only casually through college and graduate school due to time commitments and he dated casually also. I don’t think age nor dating history is the issue. Nor do I think this is a whole issue of first love infatuation.

 

[angeline15]

Thanks for all the great suggestions.

My parents own Father Barron’s Catholicism series so that is a great option.

Also I think I will communicate the importance of understanding my religion, whether he wants or feels called to convert at this time is up to him, but ill encourage (and pray) him to continue to attend mass or rcia inquiry with me.

I agree he seems more open minded than his parents or other ex- or lukewarm catholics.

I think that if we move towards engagement and marriage I will be sure to receive some couples counseling with a priest beforehand as well.

Thank you all for sharing your time and suggestions!

 

[pianistclare]

Thanks for all the great suggestions.

My parents own Father Barron’s Catholicism series so that is a great option.

Also I think I will communicate the importance of understanding my religion, whether he wants or feels called to convert at this time is up to him, but ill encourage (and pray) him to continue to attend mass or rcia inquiry with me.

I agree he seems more open minded than his parents or other ex- or lukewarm catholics.

I think that if we move towards engagement and marriage I will be sure to receive some couples counseling with a priest beforehand as well.

Thank you all for sharing your time and suggestions!

Also, you stated in an earlier post that it’s hard fro two celibate people to discuss sexual morality and child rearing…NO! This is precisely WHEN you should discuss it, not wait until you are faced with a baby on the way!
This is precisely when you discern if you are both on the same page with regard to sexual intimacy, the role of sexuality in a marriage and the way your will raise your children!
I hope your priest does a great job of PreCana, and I hope your FOCUS testing comes back well.
That will tell you a lot about your compatibility.

 

[ThyKingdomCome]

The concern about marrying a non-Catholic is being “unevenly yoked” as some would put it. Spiritually, you might end up doing all the work.

Yes, this is A concern, but not THE concern. Marriage has 2 goals - the first is for the spouses to help each other get to heaven. Being unequally yoked can either make this difficult, or just make things less pleasant on the way. It could potentially provide the means to sanctification of the more religious one, and provide the means to conversion for the less religious one.

The other, very important concern is that of the faith of the children that will be the fruit of this marriage. After all, the second, but just as important goal of marriage is procreation - and part of this is preparing your children to get to heaven. At a Catholic wedding, the Catholic spouse(s) vow to raise their children in the faith, not because of a trivial reason, but because it is the means to salvation. So we should want desperately for our children to stay Catholic when they are grown, and we should consider it tragic if it doesn’t happen. We can’t control all of our children’s choices, but we should want to do everything in our power to pass the faith on to them. The problem with raising children in a home where one parent doesn’t practice the faith is that the children will see that it is ok not to practice the faith, and ok not to believe. Of course, it is also possible that when the difficult issues come up, a non-Catholic husband will actually argue for the non-Catholic point of view and make it very difficult to live and pass on the faith in its entirety. But even with a very cooperative spouse, the children will still see that being non-Catholic was good enough for their parent, and good enough even for the Catholic parent who married and loves the non-Catholic. It will make an unspoken case for the argument that not being Catholic must also be good enough for the children. No matter what you teach them verbally, there will be some level of contradiction.

This is most definitely something that needs to be discussed long before engagement. Why wait until you are making wedding arrangements to find out you are not compatible? At that point it is almost too late to turn back - it’s not actually too late, but you when you are already in love, and already have notified people and made arrangements, many people aren’t willing to turn back at that point. These discussions should be had before you are even “in love.”

 

[jlc2k2]

My experience. Was raised and baptized Protestant but fell away from our church as a teen. Still strongly Christian but no tie to a particular church. Met DH while in grad school.

Started attending Mass with him and his family not long after we started dating. He never once asked me to convert though he was honest and said that he would be thrilled if I did. When we got engaged, his conditions were that we would use NFP instead of artificial birth control and that any children would be raised Catholic. I whole heartedly agreed without reserve. Knowing my personality, if he had insisted that I convert I would have dug my heals in.

Our pre-Cana was mostly couple to couple. They paired us with a cradle Catholic husband and Baptist-raised (but now Catholic) wife. It was good to talk to a couple who had really been there.

The Easter before our second anniversary I felt Mary calling me to the Church. It’s a feeling I have only felt one other time in my life - the day I requested baptism. I was confirmed the next January.

Was it always easy? No. But no marriage is. Will it work for everyone? No. But it can work for some. You are in a better position than I top know if it will potentially work for you and how open boyfriend would be to the suggestion that he should convert.

 

[HerCrazierHalf]

First of all you need to determine how important the faith ofa future husband is for you. I think you can tell him it would make you happy if he were to convert but take care not pressure him.

My wife is Catholic but I am not and have no intention to be. This is something made clear early in dating (actually advised her not to date me due to this) but she agreed not to pressure me to convert. Despite this I occasionally go to mass with her and the times I don’t I encourage her to go. I know we don’t keep score in relationships but keep in mind the possibility that like me your boyfriend Is simply curious even about what he may not agree with. Plus we know it makes our woman happy for reason we don’t comprehends.

That said, you should expect to do the heavy lifting on the spiritual front but also expect and compliment when he makes efforts not to undermine your efforts.

 

[Anglewannabe]

Also, you stated in an earlier post that it’s hard fro two celibate people to discuss sexual morality and child rearing…NO! This is precisely WHEN you should discuss it, not wait until you are faced with a baby on the way!

Exactly. My first though was does your boyfriend even know that artificial birth control is a sin. Trust me after having a child and dipping into his pocket for diapers, he might not see why NFP is so important.

And as another poster mentioned, men will go to church with their wives simply to make their wives happy. They sometimes could not care less about the religious aspect

There is nothing wrong with asking him his thoughts about converting, but definitely, do NOT pressure him. After you listen to his thoughts, you will have more information to make your decision

Now, I could be totally off base here, but while reading your initial post, I got the feeling you were hoping this was leading to marriage. I did not get the feeling you are already discussing it. It just seemed to me, you two are on different wavelengths right now

Angie

 

[angeline15]

Update to this thread and a prayer of thanksgiving-- my boyfriend has been accepted as an RCIA candidate as of last Sunday’s mass. He decided to recently tell me that he has had a calling in him that lead him to seeking out RCIA and learning more about my faith. At first he just went to an inquiry meeting, but met with a wonderful nun and group of young classmates that convinced him that he should continue to go weekly. I thank all of you for your advice and, above all, your prayers, as I know that inner voice was a result of them! Luckily I had very little convincing to do, as he has come to this decision himself. Please keep him and all RCIA candidates in your prayers as they have a long journey ahead of them! God bless!!

 

[Contra_Mundum_1]

How wonderful!

Thank you so much for the update. It is good to hear such positive stories.

May God bless you both.