Catholic Husband, I'm the odd one out

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I’m new to the forum, so sorry if this is the wrong section or anything it just seemed like the best place to post. A Catholic forum may not be the place to talk about this, but I’m sort of at my wits end and there aren’t really any people around me who I’d feel comfortable talking to.

So, I’m agnostic and up until about six months ago, my husband was an avowed atheist. Like, he’s actually done debates on religion and written articles and things and he’s been very adamant about it since I’ve known him. Then, right before Christmas when I was 8 months pregnant with our son, I was in a bad car accident and things were sort of touch and go with me and the baby for awhile. This apparently provoked a re-conversion experience for my husband, who said that he believes God answered his prayers in a very specific way and that he promised to return to the Church if we came out alright.

Ever since then things have been weird between us and getting worse. He goes to church every week, and he wants us to go as a family but I feel really weird about going and I can’t imagine keeping our son quiet through the whole thing, as he’s in sort of a noisy phase, so I haven’t been yet. His parents are thrilled, as he was sort of the problem child who left the faith, so we’ve been spending more time around them, which drives me nuts because his mom doesn’t like me at all and I have opposite opinions about pretty much everything from them so sitting through family gatherings with them is sort of equivalent to being a cat in a round room full of rocking chairs. There’s been a lot of talk about getting our son baptized lately, which I’m opposed to, so that’s led to a lot of arguments over the last few weeks and I’m kind of afraid that between my husband and his parents they might just do it anyway without my consent. 😦

Seriously, you guys, it’s like every part of our relationship is suffering because of this. I don’t even mind if he wants to go back to being Catholic, but I wish he would leave me and our kid out of it. I feel like I’m kind of being turned into the bad guy over the whole baptism debacle, and other things keep coming up that just seem crazy to me, like birth control. I want to keep breastfeeding for awhile so I don’t want to use a hormonal BC and I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of a diaphragm or an IUD, but he won’t use condoms now, so we practically don’t have sex at all, which makes things worse. Also, something about our marriage needing to be validated (!!!). He’s a good husband and father to our son otherwise, and I do love him, but it’s frustrating and I feel like I’m married to a completely different person than the one I signed up for. :confused:

Any advice? I don’t mean to sound like I’m totally against Catholicism, I’m not, I’m just wary of religion as a whole and the sum of all this + new mommy stress is freaking me out.
 
It sounds so very difficult for you. I don’t know the solution.
If you cannot believe in God or be part of the Church, then you understandably don’t wish to engage.

Your husband though, having returned to faith, actually cannot avoid seeking to have your marriage validated or the child baptized. As a Catholic it is his responsibility to nurture the faith of his children, and also to have a valid Catholic marriage. He cannot live as man and wife until he does so. A Catholic who marries outside the Church is not sacramentally married. He loves you enough to wish to have the marriage validated. It is natural for his family to be happy as their responsibility had been to raise their children to know and love God and to live as good Catholic Christians.

Yes, it is confusing for you that the dynamic of your marriage has changed.
It is unsurprising that it is painful to you, especially during this time that you are recovering from childbirth and the many requirements of a young baby.

Hopefully your husband’s mother will become kinder and more accepting of you, understanding that you are struggling.
I hope that life will become easier and less confusing.
Kindly wishes for all that is best.
 
SanguineRose said:
I’m new to the forum, so sorry if this is the wrong section or anything it just seemed like the best place to post. A Catholic forum may not be the place to talk about this, but I’m sort of at my wits end and there aren’t really any people around me who I’d feel comfortable talking to.

So, I’m agnostic and up until about six months ago, my husband was an avowed atheist. Like, he’s actually done debates on religion and written articles and things and he’s been very adamant about it since I’ve known him. Then, right before Christmas when I was 8 months pregnant with our son, I was in a bad car accident and things were sort of touch and go with me and the baby for awhile. This apparently provoked a re-conversion experience for my husband, who said that he believes God answered his prayers in a very specific way and that he promised to return to the Church if we came out alright.

Ever since then things have been weird between us and getting worse. He goes to church every week, and he wants us to go as a family but I feel really weird about going and I can’t imagine keeping our son quiet through the whole thing, as he’s in sort of a noisy phase, so I haven’t been yet. His parents are thrilled, as he was sort of the problem child who left the faith, so we’ve been spending more time around them, which drives me nuts because his mom doesn’t like me at all and I have opposite opinions about pretty much everything from them so sitting through family gatherings with them is sort of equivalent to being a cat in a round room full of rocking chairs. There’s been a lot of talk about getting our son baptized lately, which I’m opposed to, so that’s led to a lot of arguments over the last few weeks and I’m kind of afraid that between my husband and his parents they might just do it anyway without my consent. 😦

Seriously, you guys, it’s like every part of our relationship is suffering because of this. I don’t even mind if he wants to go back to being Catholic, but I wish he would leave me and our kid out of it. I feel like I’m kind of being turned into the bad guy over the whole baptism debacle, and other things keep coming up that just seem crazy to me, like birth control. I want to keep breastfeeding for awhile so I don’t want to use a hormonal BC and I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of a diaphragm or an IUD, but he won’t use condoms now, so we practically don’t have sex at all, which makes things worse. Also, something about our marriage needing to be validated (!!!). He’s a good husband and father to our son otherwise, and I do love him, but it’s frustrating and I feel like I’m married to a completely different person than the one I signed up for. :confused:

Any advice? I don’t mean to sound like I’m totally against Catholicism, I’m not, I’m just wary of religion as a whole and the sum of all this + new mommy stress is freaking me out.
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Maybe you could talk to him about going a little slower about this and giving you a chance to adjust to his new found faith. I can understand his desire to do things right now. It is a profound awakening when you know God has answered your prayer in a powerful way. He is very grateful as he should be. Would it be possible for you both to attend Natural Family Planning classes. It is actually more trust worthy than the other things you mentioned. You don’t have to be Catholic to learn it. You both need to be patient with each other. Maybe even say a little prayer together. If you can’t do that, maybe you could say to God. "God, if your really there. help me to know it. " God Bless, Memaw
 
Every marriage is a marriage where you don’t get what you signed up for. That’s what “for better or worse” means. I mean, think about it, don’t you want to have the freedom to completely change your mind about things, even within a marriage? But if you have that freedom, it means that your husband would get something he didn’t sign up for.

Your situation is really difficult, but I think you will find things that you like about your “new” husband. At any rate, faith or no faith, resentment isn’t a going to be good for you, in the long term. Express your anger and frustration, but don’t feed and water your anger like it’s a flower you cherish.

Another thought: let him pray for you. If there is no God, prayer doesn’t hurt anything, and resistance to it is just pointless stubbornness. If there is a God, prayer could help you come to Him – and surely you would want Him to show Himself to you?
 
It must be a very difficult and even uncomfortable transition for you. I just imagine in my own marriage if the tables were turned: we were both devout Catholics coming into the marriage. If my husband were to suddenly have a change of heart and become atheist or agnostic and our Faith was something we had originally connected over, all theology aside it would be a difficult situation.

As another has very wonderfully stated, no marriage gives exactly what you are expecting or bargaining for. People evolve and change and change their minds constantly, and we do what we can to go with it and be supportive of one another. As a Catholic, your husband genuinely does have an obligation to your marriage and your child to bring the sacraments in. If your greatest source of discomfort is the baby making too much noise, please don’t worry too much about it. Step out if he is screaming, but most people welcome the sound of a baby at the Mass. While you may feel out of place as a non-believer, you are absolutely welcome and so is your child. The Church does not seek to destroy marriages or break apart families. She seeks to bind you even closer together, and to center you around Christ. It must all seem so bizarre at this point in time.

I would let your husband know that you are uncomfortable with how rapidly things are changing, but I would not discourage him from his conversion. Perhaps he would be satisfied with you attending Mass half of the time while you explore the Faith. But I really do encourage you to keep an open heart, an open mind, and to come as often as you will allow. There is grace at the Mass, even if one doesn’t believe it to be present. No harm will come to you by being there. 🙂

My heart beats with joy for your husband. My heart beats for joy that you and your baby made it through such a scary situation and came out alright!! Praise be to God!
 
I can understand somewhat. I was the avowed agnostic and then had an epiphany. Your husband is excited, as I was. It took several months to come down from the high. Thankfully my husband and I had married in a baptist church so there is no need to convalidate our marriage. Your husband should speak with his priest about all of these issues. You can and should ask him to slow down. I have had to “back off” my husband. He attends mass on a semi regular basis and I am excited for those times together at church. A year after I came into the Church, our children were baptized at ages 7 and 8. Your husband should not do this without your full consent. It can wait for quite a while and they should not worry about the baby’s soul in the meantime. Exclusively breast feeding is a form of natural family planning. There may be a GYN in your area that teaches it or maybe there is a couple at the parish who can help. I never liked the idea of IUDs or other similar abortifacients. Years ago, before my epiphany, I stopped using bcp because I just didn’t want the chemicals in my body. I read a book about “charting” and it was fun and easy. My journey took a lot of time, but that last push was difficult for my whole family. I was so excited about it, I couldn’t shut up. I started many arguments and debates that I couldn’t win. I had to learn to step back, slow down, and stop expecting my husband to participate. I get excited every time he goes to mass with us.
 
this is an issue of communication; you need to talk with your husband. it’s normal for a new convert to be very zealous: just like one would be after buying a dream car that cost him 50 years of savings. but calmly let him understand that you are not against his faith but you need some time to adjust because of your own convictions.

These are issues about your (and his) immediate family, so interference from the larger family should be minimized and considered as suggestions (which might be good anyway).

there are effective natural family planning methods: getting medical counsel can help you both to make a mutual decision. just be careful not to push him too hard and into desperation, because his new faith is against artificial family planning. sexual intimacy is a big price to pay over any marital issue… a price too big to even be contemplated.

I will consult a Catholic canonist concerning what should be done about the baptism of a child to which one of the spouses does not consent. I will post his reply here. But note that his new faith requires him by obligation to bring up his (your) children according to the same faith.

there are always trials in life, but God never wills for division. your marriage and family unity should not suffer over some disagreements based on religious beliefs. I know some families that God healed miraculously, so I will pray for yours too. I believe a very simple answer to everything will be for God to manifest Himself to you and heal your doubts (an agnostic neither affirms nor denies that God Is). the first topic of the book Catechism of the Catholic Church deals with man’s capacity to know God. can you read only this first chapter of the book … at least for the sake of your love and respect for your husband?

while he might have to slow down and make so concessions for you, two personal questions you must answer privately are “How much concession are you willing to make for him?” and “how much do you trust your husband (Is it strong enough to allow him do things that you personally do no believe)?”
 
your husband needs counseling. a faithful Catholic should be full of love, grace and mercy. you might talk with him about Catholic counseling together. perhaps start with his pastor and seek advice and connection to professional help. hopefully, his behavior will lead you to God and the perfection of your family. try to communicate with him. the fact that your m.i.l. doesn’t like you, is not a good sign for supposed ‘Catholics’. see if you can get her to warm up to you in some ways. i wish you all blessings from God!
 
You have several excellent suggestions from previous posts, I hope they have helped you in beginning to find a way to heal this rift in your marriage. Matters of faith which are so far apart are difficult to solve, you can’t just make yourself believe something you don’t believe. But, as you have described yourself as an agnostic I am wondering if you could find it in your heart to pray for God to help you solve this. Prayer is a mighty force and I firmly believe that it will help you. I would also ask you, as a matter of placing the future of your marriage as a priority, if you would consider sharing what you have here with your husbands’ parish priest. You need some guidance and I believe he will be able to help. Praying for you.

Memorare

REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.
 
First off, you need to make it clear to your husband that religion or not, there will be no undermining you as an equal parent, and that doing things behind your back will irreparably damage your trust and your marriage. And really, if that’s a road he wants to go down, he will not win. It’s a lot easier to win a child over with “You don’t have to go to church and follow all those rules because that stuff isn’t true” than it is to win a child over with strict religious observance. That’s why it’s in both of your best interests, and the interests of your child, to compromise, communicate, and never go behind the other’s back.

Then you need to do a lot of research on his new beliefs, and after a lot of thought and in the spirit of trying to make your husband happy and fulfilled, make a list of issues that you can compromise on, and ones that you absolutely will not bend on. This would probably be the time to look into a method of birth control that you’re comfortable with that doesn’t require his participation. I know you said that you aren’t comfortable with many, but keep looking.

How do you feel about convalidation? For me, it would be a no-go, but it may be something that you want to get your heart around. You should also be aware that even if you refuse, he can have it done behind your back, without your knowledge or consent. That’s another issue you may want to discuss.

I would meet with a priest privately to discuss these issues as well. He may be able to give you some perspective and knowledge without making you feel pressured.
 
BlueEyedLady said:
First off, you need to make it clear to your husband that religion or not, there will be no undermining you as an equal parent, and that doing things behind your back will irreparably damage your trust and your marriage. And really, if that’s a road he wants to go down, he will not win. It’s a lot easier to win a child over with “You don’t have to go to church and follow all those rules because that stuff isn’t true” than it is to win a child over with strict religious observance. That’s why it’s in both of your best interests, and the interests of your child, to compromise, communicate, and never go behind the other’s back.

Then you need to do a lot of research on his new beliefs, and after a lot of thought and in the spirit of trying to make your husband happy and fulfilled, make a list of issues that you can compromise on, and ones that you absolutely will not bend on. This would probably be the time to look into a method of birth control that you’re comfortable with that doesn’t require his participation. I know you said that you aren’t comfortable with many, but keep looking.

How do you feel about convalidation? For me, it would be a no-go, but it may be something that you want to get your heart around. You should also be aware that even if you refuse, he can have it done behind your back, without your knowledge or consent. That’s another issue you may want to discuss.

I would meet with a priest privately to discuss these issues as well. He may be able to give you some perspective and knowledge without making you feel pressured.
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BlueEyedLady’s words are quite wise and true. It depends on how reverent he is with his belief but if he is of the ultra orthodox variety and this isn’t merely a phase some of her suggestions might help. It is always a difficult scenario when somone you know so well undergoes a sudden change, be it a stroke, a change in mindset or indeed takes up an entirely new world view like Catholicism. They can easily seem like entirely different people (I’ve seen this myself from both perspectives, when I gave up promoting church teaching and likewise when a former friend of mine took it up).

The other of course would be to follow and support his beliefs, which while I’m sure that might make him happy I understand it is not for everyone.
 
SanguineRose said:
I’m new to the forum, so sorry if this is the wrong section or anything it just seemed like the best place to post. A Catholic forum may not be the place to talk about this, but I’m sort of at my wits end and there aren’t really any people around me who I’d feel comfortable talking to.

So, I’m agnostic and up until about six months ago, my husband was an avowed atheist. Like, he’s actually done debates on religion and written articles and things and he’s been very adamant about it since I’ve known him. Then, right before Christmas when I was 8 months pregnant with our son, I was in a bad car accident and things were sort of touch and go with me and the baby for awhile. This apparently provoked a re-conversion experience for my husband, who said that he believes God answered his prayers in a very specific way and that he promised to return to the Church if we came out alright.

Ever since then things have been weird between us and getting worse. He goes to church every week, and he wants us to go as a family but I feel really weird about going and I can’t imagine keeping our son quiet through the whole thing, as he’s in sort of a noisy phase, so I haven’t been yet. His parents are thrilled, as he was sort of the problem child who left the faith, so we’ve been spending more time around them, which drives me nuts because his mom doesn’t like me at all and I have opposite opinions about pretty much everything from them so sitting through family gatherings with them is sort of equivalent to being a cat in a round room full of rocking chairs. There’s been a lot of talk about getting our son baptized lately, which I’m opposed to, so that’s led to a lot of arguments over the last few weeks and I’m kind of afraid that between my husband and his parents they might just do it anyway without my consent. 😦

Seriously, you guys, it’s like every part of our relationship is suffering because of this. I don’t even mind if he wants to go back to being Catholic, but I wish he would leave me and our kid out of it. I feel like I’m kind of being turned into the bad guy over the whole baptism debacle, and other things keep coming up that just seem crazy to me, like birth control. I want to keep breastfeeding for awhile so I don’t want to use a hormonal BC and I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of a diaphragm or an IUD, but he won’t use condoms now, so we practically don’t have sex at all, which makes things worse. Also, something about our marriage needing to be validated (!!!). He’s a good husband and father to our son otherwise, and I do love him, but it’s frustrating and I feel like I’m married to a completely different person than the one I signed up for. :confused:

Any advice? I don’t mean to sound like I’m totally against Catholicism, I’m not, I’m just wary of religion as a whole and the sum of all this + new mommy stress is freaking me out.
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That’s hard. I was once the one who found my faith in a relationship, and that, in part, split us apart, since we no longer had anything in common.

As to wanting to get the marriage validated, the other alternative for him would to be in an invalid marriage, and he could actually divorce, remarry someone else in the Church.
If you want to stay with him, be glad he is willing to validate your marriage in the Church.

As a Catholic, he has an obligation to raise his children Catholic, so that’s where he is coming from. So, you will be at cross purposes. I don’t know how a practicing Catholic could compromise on an issue like that.

To me, I don’t see how an atheist-Catholic marriage could work, since on the most important issues, those of faith, you would no longer be “on the same page”. That’s why these Catholic to non-Catholic marriages are discouraged, and why the Church encourages us to marry other Catholics. However, he found his faith, and that sometimes happens. It happened with me, as well.

Protestants say that being married to a non-believer is what they call being “unevenly yoked”. After my experience with this, as a person of faith, that’s what it feels like.

Before marrying in the Church, you would both be expected to go to Precana, and you can see whether you both would be willing to do this or not.

Oh, and about your child and noisiness, if the child goes to mass, he would just need to go to the crying room is all.

Would you consider marriage counseling?
 
With issues of faith, there really is no middle ground. Either you believe or you don’t. It’s black or white, yes or no. It doesn’t really lend itself to compromise on either side, the atheist side or the Catholic side.
 
ClearWater said:
With issues of faith, there really is no middle ground. Either you believe or you don’t. It’s black or white, yes or no. It doesn’t really lend itself to compromise on either side, the atheist side or the Catholic side.
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That’s the thing about marriage and patenting though, compromise is mandatory. And there is no way out of this-even if they divorce they will have to compromise every day to co-parent with their now ex spouse. And if they still decide not to compromise and instead make everything a power struggle? The child will be the only person to suffer.

But that’s marriage. Even when it seems impossible you just keep working and trying, until you either succeed or die.

There are a lot of people on this site in happy catholic-atheist marriages. They would be good people to look to for advice. However, they went into their marriages with certain understandings that the OP did not, and that’s a fundamental difference.
 
AussieTrish said:
…

Your husband though, having returned to faith, actually cannot avoid seeking to have your marriage validated or the child baptized. …
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Not quite. While he does need to rectify his marriage, the children may be out of his control. He had children under the pretext of raising them atheist, and is in no position to insist they be baptized. He still must raise them to be Christian to the best of his ability, but he must accept the consequence of his lapse of faith.
 
I echo the majority of the advice here. I think you should talk privately to a priest and if you find that you can trust him to be considerate of your situation, have him talk to your husband and calm him down a bit for your sake and that of the marriage and child- a very Christian attitude.

That said, consider also what you can be okay with after further thought. After all, Baptism is just pouring a little water on your child and having a nice introduction ceremony if you don’t believe in the supernatural gift. But since you are agnostic, you could also consider the possibility that it might also do your child a spiritual good. As for the marriage validation- He’s doing the only thing that makes sense if he believes the Church and loves you and the marriage. If your issue with going to church is mainly your child being noisy, you needn’t worry too much. Lots of children will be there already and there may well be a chapel or “crying room” for your child.

If your objection is on the belief and upbringing front then you need to address that with your husband. I called myself an agnostic till recently, but I never objected to religion in general. Both of you need to be charitable and understanding with each other. Whatever you do, you should do it together. This business of one parent going to the church and the other not is not very understandable to me.

On the indoctrination side- which I assume is partially what you’re worried about- Catholic “indoctrination” isn’t very effective. Really. In the teenage years you decide whether you believe in the faith or not. Later on in the adult years you reconsider it again based on your broader life experience and so on. Catholics are encouraged to ask questions. They don’t shy away from science or philosophy. So the mind is open. Sure, your child may associate good childhood memories with church as an adult- but that’s not enough to keep the faith. It really does become a decision, which is stacked in the favor of atheism (indoctrination) or agnosticism these days anyway. It’s not like fundamentalist religion which tries to lock-in the mind and have the believer just disregard other things.

I hope you and your husband can come to a good understanding. Good luck!
 
Thanks for the advice, guys. I was kind of freaking out a little last night, probably due to lack of sleep and being on the tail end of an argument, so sorry if it all sounded a little histrionic.

I’m really not against him developing his faith or doing whatever he needs to do to be happy, and it has been six months, so it’s not like he just sprung all of this at once and expected me to be okay with it. It’s just hard to completely re-evaluate my marriage and try to figure out how to be parent at the same time. If it wasn’t something he was expecting me to participate in in more than cursory way, I wouldn’t mind at all. Issues of lack of belief aside, the idea of getting involved gives me a serious case of the feels because my parents were a secular Muslim and an Orthodox Jew respectively and the only thing it seems like they ever agreed about was that I could be anything I wanted except Christian. :doh2:

If the convalidation thing is really that important, I could probably do that, as long as I don’t have to convert or promise to raise our kids Catholic or anything, which I can’t really do in good conscience. For the baptism, though, I’m just not okay with it at this point. If our kid wants to be Catholic later, that would be fine, I guess, but I at least want him to be old enough to understand what’s going on. Ironically, that was something my husband used to really hate. He says that he wouldn’t baptize our son without my agreement, just that it’s very important to him so he hopes I’ll agree, but my in-laws talk about it like it’s an inevitability, which makes me really nervous.

He has suggested talking to the priest at his church about the whole thing, at least so I can understand better what all is involved with the convalidation and the baptism and so on, so I will probably do that. I don’t know, though, it feels like we used to be on the same side about all this and now we’re not so it’s just me against him and his family and it seems like talking to his priest would just be one more person to have to push against. I’ll give it a try, though, and marriage counseling might not be a bad idea either at this point.

Personally, I’m not adamant about not believing in a God, I just don’t see any evidence that would convince me that there is one, which is why I label myself an agnostic and not an atheist. My husband said the same thing as someone above about “Just ask God to show you he’s real. If he listened to my prayers and responded, and I was a lot more against believing in him than you, he’ll listen to you.” It’s just bizarro to hear something like that come out of his mouth, but it was the smallest thing I could do to make him happy so I asked for something specific as evidence and haven’t told anyone what it is. So, we’ll see I guess.
 
SanguineRose said:
He goes to church every week, and he wants us to go as a family but I feel really weird about going and I can’t imagine keeping our son quiet through the whole thing, as he’s in sort of a noisy phase, so I haven’t been yet.
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Others have given sound advice on the big picture here but I just wanted to comment on this little frame. Don’t over worry about a noisy baby in Mass if you ever do go. The childrens Masses on Sunday mornings are full of noisy babies and toddlers. If need be, you can get up and wander around outside a bit to put him to sleep or quiet him down. That part is really a non issue.
 
SanguineRose said:
Thanks for the advice, guys. I was kind of freaking out a little last night, probably due to lack of sleep and being on the tail end of an argument, so sorry if it all sounded a little histrionic.

I’m really not against him developing his faith or doing whatever he needs to do to be happy, and it has been six months, so it’s not like he just sprung all of this at once and expected me to be okay with it. It’s just hard to completely re-evaluate my marriage and try to figure out how to be parent at the same time. If it wasn’t something he was expecting me to participate in in more than cursory way, I wouldn’t mind at all. Issues of lack of belief aside, the idea of getting involved gives me a serious case of the feels because my parents were a secular Muslim and an Orthodox Jew respectively and the only thing it seems like they ever agreed about was that I could be anything I wanted except Christian. :doh2:

If the convalidation thing is really that important, I could probably do that, as long as I don’t have to convert or promise to raise our kids Catholic or anything, which I can’t really do in good conscience. For the baptism, though, I’m just not okay with it at this point. If our kid wants to be Catholic later, that would be fine, I guess, but I at least want him to be old enough to understand what’s going on. Ironically, that was something my husband used to really hate. He says that he wouldn’t baptize our son without my agreement, just that it’s very important to him so he hopes I’ll agree, but my in-laws talk about it like it’s an inevitability, which makes me really nervous.

He has suggested talking to the priest at his church about the whole thing, at least so I can understand better what all is involved with the convalidation and the baptism and so on, so I will probably do that. I don’t know, though, it feels like we used to be on the same side about all this and now we’re not so it’s just me against him and his family and it seems like talking to his priest would just be one more person to have to push against. I’ll give it a try, though, and marriage counseling might not be a bad idea either at this point.

Personally, I’m not adamant about not believing in a God, I just don’t see any evidence that would convince me that there is one, which is why I label myself an agnostic and not an atheist. My husband said the same thing as someone above about “Just ask God to show you he’s real. If he listened to my prayers and responded, and I was a lot more against believing in him than you, he’ll listen to you.” It’s just bizarro to hear something like that come out of his mouth, but it was the smallest thing I could do to make him happy so I asked for something specific as evidence and haven’t told anyone what it is. So, we’ll see I guess.
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I don’t think I would put God ‘on the spot’ by telling Him he has to do something specific or you won’t believe in Him. Maybe what your asking for wouldn’t be good for you in the long run. We never know. You exist, that’s proof HE is real. The miracle of birth should give us much food for thought. I hope you do talk to a priest. He could help you and won’t put any pressure on you either. Prayers for all. God Bless, Memaw
 
BlueEyedLady said:
There are a lot of people on this site in happy catholic-atheist marriages. They would be good people to look to for advice. However, they went into their marriages with certain understandings that the OP did not, and that’s a fundamental difference.
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This, in my opinion, is the main problem. The OP married someone with whom she shared a worldview. Her husband has now changed his outlook, and in the process, is trying to make some fundamental changes in their marriage. As the one trying to change the rules, he needs to be the one to smooth the path for his wife. He should also be prepared for the possibility that she won’t be willing to play along in some respects - such as raising the children Catholic or following Catholic rules about birth control and sexuality.
 
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