Any mixed Christian marriages?

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PalaceFlophaus

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Hi,

I’m a fairly new Catholic. My wife grew up agnostic, but currently attends a “rock n’ roll” Evangelical church, and is very much a Protestant Evangelical. She has no desire to become Catholic; we attend different services on Sundays, but sometimes meet up. Bottom line, we respect each others’ spirituality, and we both follow Christ.

Anybody else in this type of “mixed marrige”? How do you connect with your spouse spiritually? What kinds of things do you do together?
 
PalaceFlophaus said:
Hi,

I’m a fairly new Catholic. My wife grew up agnostic, but currently attends a “rock n’ roll” Evangelical church, and is very much a Protestant Evangelical. She has no desire to become Catholic; we attend different services on Sundays, but sometimes meet up. Bottom line, we respect each others’ spirituality, and we both follow Christ.

Anybody else in this type of “mixed marrige”? How do you connect with your spouse spiritually? What kinds of things do you do together?
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It’s hard to connect spiritually. I think you have to accept that she believes in Christ and be in unity because of that. My husband is a JW, so nothing in common there. DH and I don’t do much together in the spiritual sense, except for praying before a meal and before going to bed. He prays to Jehovah God in the name of his son Jesus Christ, and I pray to God the Father in the name or *our Lord *Jesus Christ.

At least you guys can celebrate Easter and Christmas as religious holidays.

Have you learned anything about what she believes? Has she learned about what you believe? That could help you guys. I learned all about my husband’s religion, from his religion and from outside sources but he hasn’t done that for me. So I guess I understand him better than he understands me but cannot do much in a religious sense together. Sorry if I wasn’t that helpful.
 
my wife is baptist. i grew up baptist and briefly in a AoG church. i converted to catholicism this year though. we were suppose to go through RCIA together but i guess she had beef with the church “telling her what she can do with her own body” ie: birth control and refuses to even try NFP. she doesn’t go to her church and sees nothing wrong with it. she comes to mass with me once every blue moon and will attend KoC events with me. i’ve tried to talk to her about the Catholic faith but she just doesn’t get it and it is very aggravating. so what can i do? i pray for her and hope she will turn to Jesus. all i can do is try to be that light for her even though i fail at times. maybe i should say a novena for her to Blessed Mary.
 
When my wife converted to another religion it extracted a terrible toll on our marriage. I would say it is now a shell of its former self. We’re still committed and we still love each other, but the deep hurt and pain that this caused has formed a deep chasm in our lives.

The closeness is gone. The tenderness is gone. The joy is gone. All that is left is commitment. I miss her so much it hurts. I weep alone when I think about it. She was the a joy in my life like no other. Now, I look over at her and see another person. A person that I like and want to please, but not that soul-mate that I once had. My prayers are for her, but they are also for me. I want to love her with utter abandon like I used to. I want her to love me that way.

The conversion was a painful process every step of the way. Neither one of us handled it well. I wish we could talk about this, but she is not much of a talker. I can’t even find ways to start the conversation. There is no danger of either of us leaving, so our marriage is still alive. It just lacks the spark and joy that it once had.

We can still celebrate holy holidays together as a family, but we no longer have the same connection as we had. We each have our own obligations and spiritual duties, but now we do them apart.

I would tell you that unless your lines of communications are open and you are both willing to talk about important things, you will never have the close marriage that you otherwise might have had. I know this to be true in my own life and it is my deepest regret.

I miss her so much that it makes me unable to breathe sometimes. I hope she misses me too. Neither one of us us innocent of wrong doing and we both are following what we believe is the only course in our lives. This is the real tradegy.
 
My DH was raised Baptist and then moved to a non-dom with his family. He is currently agnostic.
He makes some comments regarding Catholicismthat cause me pain, and I have told him so. He accuses me of being too touchy about it, and I point out that he doesn’t have the same love and trust in faith that I do. He is slowly learning (only been married 2 months… so we are both still learning). He occasionally attends Mass with me, mostly the weeks we have my daughter.
He agreed with me on NFP- but for health reasons for me, rather than spiritual, as it was for me. We argue a little over the use of a barrier method, but we are currently using abstinence, as we should be.
 
I used to go with my wife to the Evangelical church because I thought I was supposed to… even though it made me so incredibly uncomfortable, because God was calling me out of there. Now, it has solved so many problems in our lives, being obedient to His call. Sometimes I think it would be easier if she joined me in the Catholic Church… but that’s between her and God.

I have yet to encounter the kind of hostility most of you have described. Five years ago she would not have supported me. But I am careful to always keep the lines of communication open. We HAVE to be on the same team. I am bitter about a lot of things, growing up Fundamentalist Protestant, and she believes a lot of junk about Catholicism… but we can’t go there. We have to focus on the common ground.
 
I started investigating Catholicism - very modestly - for a whole variety of reasons, in 2004. I got scared and stopped studying in 2005. We decided to leave our Assemblies of God Church at the end of 2005, and we tried a Presbyterian Church (a denomination I used to attend many years ago, and loved). After 3 or 4 months, I started studying Catholicism again, and realized very quickly that whether or not I got up the guts to convert, NO Protestant denomination would be close enough to the real thing. I tried to talk to my wife about it, but she was absolutely uninterested. To her, it was just a bizarre intellectual head-trip of mine. She says now that she had NO idea I was really taking it seriously (which floors me - I mean I was REALLY into it).

In August 2006, I finally told her that I decided to start attending RCIA classes. We were in crisis. Thankfully, she didn’t divorce me. It was a couple of months before she would attend mass with me, and she still finds it difficult. Though she’s WAY more supportive now than a year ago (she even lets me read Catholic books to our 2 kids), she still has ZERO interest in investigating Catholicism. Since I frequently play Catholic radio shows and she listens, she thinks she HAS investigated it.

I entered the Church at Easter. I still go to a Presbyterian Church with her on Sunday morning (where our kids go to Sunday School). I never miss mass, and the kids go with me. Sometimes she does too. I always said I would go to Protestant church with her (to support HER relationship with God), but man it’s hard. I feel like everything is trying to pull my family in a completely different direction than I’m trying to lead. And since my kids aren’t in CCD - and we haven’t discovered Catholic small groups or Bible studies yet, my family is ONLY exposed to the least (to them) interesting experience of Catholicism. They get fun fellowship in Protestant Church, then sit through non-entertaining Mass.

I try to go easy on her, but it is heartbreaking. What kills me is how many convert stories I seem to hear/read, where the spouse seems to know nothing of the “Better Dead than Catholic” mentality - and there’s real openness. I know there are the Kimberly Hahn stories, but it seems like Kimberly Hahn at least struggled and cracked a book. And there are stories about marriages that just shut down and split up. The thing is, our marriage is really healthy in every other way, but talking about spiritual things has always been hard for her (and I suppose hard for me to speak in a way she can hear).

Anyway, that’s my story. Prayers are appreciated!
 
I reverted back to the Catholic faith 2 years ago, and my husband is a non-practicing Anglican from Canada. When we met over 8 years ago, we were both not practicing, and we got married. Since my reversion, I have spoken to my husband about converting, but it’s very hard for him to learn about the Church through books or audio tapes because his own agnostic beliefs.

Despite all this, he does go with me to Mass every once in a while. He has agreed to have our children raised Catholic, and he did speak once about being able to receive communion when our youngest receives his first Eucharist in the spring. I don’t expect things to happen overnight, but I do believe he is inching closer and closer towards the Catholic Church. He said that he likes how the Catholic church is steadfast on its teachings - he can’t bring himself to join the American branch of the Anglican Church because of the fact that they ordained women and practicing homosexuals.

All I can do is be the type of Christian witness God wants me to be, ask our Blessed Mother for intercession for my intentions for him, and hope that the graces he received in Baptism and in Confirmation (Anglican) will stir his heart towards a firmer belief in Christ.
 
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