Are you a 100% faithful devout Catholic and totally HAPPY in your mixed faith marriage?

[Feanaro_s_Wife]

No.It’s hard and it’s stressful and having children makes it more difficult.You are a ‘single parent’ at Baptisms, First Holy Communion.In my experience no matter how much you and your spouse love each other if you cannot share your faith, in fact feel awkward even talking about it(not trying to convert him),there is a strain.And that is after 16 years of marriage.

Thanks for contributing, but if you are not happy in your mixed marriage I am not looking to hear that side of it. Almost every mixed marriage thread has that viewpoint already. But thank you.

 

[Feanaro_s_Wife]

And Thanks Malia, for starting this thread. It is so nice to have a positive thread for “people like us.” Everything is always so negative…
God Bless,

RyanL’s Wife

**
You know, (true confession time) I started this thread not expecting to get ANY responses (of the type I asked for). I have been the type to automatically think that not sharing a faith means a FOR SURE unhappy marriage. I am so glad to hear the positive stories and they have really helped me grow. So thank you.**

 

[aurora77]

And Thanks Malia, for starting this thread. It is so nice to have a positive thread for “people like us.” Everything is always so negative… I usually end up leaving CAF for a while after reading a mixed marriage thread, they irk me so much. (I honestly don’t know why I read them… I should know better.) But this thread is different and I truly appreciate that. Thanks so much for allowing a positive thread on this topic.

from me too! There are some threads that make me leave CAF for a time, and the mixed marriages threads are some of them. I actually avoided the Family Life section for awhile because of the negativity. It’s nice to see that I’m not the only one with a wonderful marriage to an amazing man who isn’t Catholic.

 

[Lady_Of_Victory]

i was not always happy in our two years of a mixed marriage… realistically we suffered tremendously. but God adds meaning and purpose and joy and authentic love to Christo centric suffering… don’t most people gradually respond to sincere love in a favorable way?..

Christ will be all that we ask Him to be for us… He will be the spouse for us and guide us…when our spouse cannot give what he doesn’t know…

i think Blessed Mother is the best way to intimately know her Son our Lord… i highly recommend studying and reading anything by st. louis de montfort; he’s quite charming i may add…

st. montfort must’ve truly known the heart of Blessed Mother, the spouse of the Holy Spirit… Certainly we know that She moves the Heart of the Father… :idea: Imagine what She can teach us … …

 

[Crazy_Diamond]

I don’t qualify to answer, since I’m the Baptist in our marriage, but I’ll piece together some things my wife said in another thread as a possible answer:

This is Crazy Diamond’s wife–I’m the Catholic in the marriage–, and I thought I’d add my two cents, though I’m not a regular participant on the forum.

When we first got married, and even some when we were dating, we got into some intense arguments about who was right, hoping the other would see the truth, etc. Some of the arguments were more fun debates–we’re both pretty intellectual and enjoy some amount of debating as a sport. Some or our discussions were actually pretty upsetting.

After a year or two, I think we got the fighting out of our system, and really don’t do it much anymore. I’ll make jokes about how certain mundane problems could be solved if he would just become Catholic, and usually the context is pretty funny, so we both end up laughing. I tease CD that the real reason he hangs out on Catholic Answers is because he misses our arguments

So why don’t we argue so much anymore? Is it because we don’t care? No. It’s because two children later, and a third on the way, we’ve found that quite frankly, there are a lot of pressing issues children bring to our lives that I haven’t found to be particularly well addressed by either one of our Church traditions. I’m not going to say that someone hasn’t written about it somewhere, because I haven’t done the exhaustive research, but I don’t see these things addressed adequatlely either in homilies, letters from the Bishop, or our Diocesan newspaper–in other words, a lot of important issues CD and I have encountered are not well addressed in our mainstream Catholic and/or Protestant cultures…

CD’s wife again…

Another issue is vaccination, and the larger issue of how the Western medical model has hijacked so much of our life, decision making, and even spirituality.

…]

I mention this again not so much to lecture on medicine, but to mention an issue that has touched our lives and against which we have had to guard ourselves and our children with little direct support or even understanding from the Catholic Church. As I alluded to before, we didn’t find a whole lot of support from CD’s church either, although his new pastor has shown more of an understanding when we brought it up. And to be fair, we did find support from individuals in both churches, just not ither church itself, if that makes sense.

more in a bit…

 

[Crazy_Diamond]

My wife again…

CD’s wife again…

One issue I think the Catholic Church has done a fantastic job with has been the contraception issue. Kudos to Couple to Couple League for all their hard work in educating Catholics, Protestants, and even nonChristians about the issues. When CD and I were dating I made it clear that was non negotiable. We would use NFP until we were ready to have children. CD honestly hadn’t thought much about the issue but went along. After taking the NFP class together, he realized that it would have been a grave evil to have allowed his wife to go on the pill for the health reasons to me alone, never mind the birth control part. It actually turned out to be an easy issue for us. It helped that we both wanted children–as many as God will give us–for him to accept that even the more medically benign forms of contraception would have no place in our marriage. I chose a man who has fundamental good character, which means that it’s not going to take much to persuade him on an issue where the truth is pretty darned obvious. Now, if we could get the rest of the Catholics to understand the truth about contraception and be as fervent in upholding Church Teaching on the matter as my Protestant husband…

In summary, when it was just the two of us, Theology seemed like a big deal, for the most part, the only issue on our radar, so we went at it with each other. Then we had children or simply grew up, and we realized that there is a lot out there that’s just as important, and in many ways more immediate, that we do agree on wholeheartedly. In fact, I have found more areas of agreement with my nonCatholic husband than I have found with my Catholic family of origin and many Catholic friends and acquaintances I have made over the years. I don’t want to say that I couldn’t have found a Catholic man who would have also been in agreement with me on those other life impacting issues. Honestly, if I could change one thing about my husband, it would be that he’d also be Catholic. I just recognize that God has given me so much in him and that because I am married to him, my children are in a very good place.

There are lots of ways of living that my husband and I are in complete agreement on that aren’t exactly mainstream and it’s a real blessing that I have found in my life partner a kindred spirit. One other non-mainstream decision we made was to not have television in our home. How many people, Catholic or Protestant, out there would go for that? I could also mention parenting style and homeschooling, on which we also agree. We can stand together in this world, and even be nonconformist about a lot of things within our own churches while holding deep respect for our different heritages.

Does this mean I don’t worry about raising the kids Catholic? No. I am a little worried about how we’re going to handle things when our oldest reaches first Communion age. Both our children have been baptized in the Catholic Church and CD was supportive of that. It was a bit dicey to work out but we did. I trust that we’ll work it out with first Communion as well.

 

[Crazy_Diamond]

My wife again…

CD’s wife again…

Does this mean I don’t think Catholic Teaching matters? No. I think it matters a great deal, and it’s no secret between us that I think CD is wrong on some Theological matters.

It’s just that there is a lot of Theology that is interesting to discuss but doesn’t have immediate bearing on our God-given responsibility to raise our children in the best way we know how. I have learned that when Jesus said we are to be in the world but not of the world, he meant that we were to go against the world in absolutely everything. He didn’t just mean spiritual matters.

I often hear people share about how radical it is to be part of a church community in today’s world. It’s true that going to church is a way to take a stand in some way, but it is only the beginning. We need to take a stand in all areas of our life. Of course it is difficult for us to do that and often we don’t even realize we are doing things the world’s way until it’s pointed out to us. God will only ultimately hold us responsible for what we know.

I would look at unity in marriage (as in both spouses being Catholic–I do believe the Catholic Church is the true Church) as being an important issue. I would look at other matters I brought up (and some I didn’t) as also being important issues in which unity is important. Then I have to take a step back and recognize that no matter who I marry, I’m not going to find the absolutely perfect combination because we live in a fallen world and we ourselves are fallen. I have to look at the important issues where my husband and I disagree along with the important issues where we do agree and have to conclude that it’s a very good combination.

Did I know all this before we got married? No. I had no idea while we were dating that we’d wind up being nonvaccinating parents. How did CD and I know we were right for each other even without knowing all those issues that we would eventually agree on? I’m not sure I know that answer. I think a huge part was that I recognized from the beginning that he was a man of good character. He was honest, open, ethical. His faith in God was very important to him. We’d known each other for a long time before we dated and I’d seen evidence of his good character on many occasions.

I think ultimately that’s what it comes down to. Does the one you are thinking of marrying have good character? By that I mean in part, do they care about God and faith? In some ways the fact that CD hasn’t immediately become Catholic for my sake also says a lot about his deep faith and character. Should he become Catholic in the future I will be confident it’s for the right reasons. Is your potential mate open to truth no matter how uncomfortable it might be to face? Can he face himself at his worst and make honest and lasting life changes while still valuing himself? Does he show basic charity to others? Look in the Bible and Catechism for other definitions of good character, such as 1 Corinthians 13, aka the Love chapter. Ask God to give you wisdom. Work on your own character.

If you and your spouse have good character, you can make it even in the face of big disagreements. If you or your mate don’t have good character, all the agreement you have won’t help much. Marriage and life in general is challenging and you need good character to make it as a good person.

OK, I think I’m done now. Hope this helps or at least informs.

CD’s happy Catholic wife.

Okay, that’s it. Sorry for the length, but I couldn’t shorten it much and do justice to what she said.