Catholic women marrying non-Catholic men

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FrankLawrence

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Why do so many Catholic women marry non-Catholic men? Why are there so many Catholic women who come to Mass with their young children, yet NO HUSBAND present with them at Mass? Why do so many Catholic women ignore 2 Corinthians 6:14, and not make the fact that a man is a practicing Catholic an absolute prerequisite to even grant him a first date? Why do so many Catholic women not consider that he shares her Catholic faith to be a necessary non-negotiable personality trait in a life-time partner? I’m not here to make judgements or point fingers. I’m just seeking answers.
 
I am one of those husbandless Catholic moms. My reason is simple: I wasn’t Catholic when I met and married my husband. That only happened a few years ago.

However, DH is baptized Catholic, but he doesn’t attend church or consider himself Catholic (or any other religion). Praying he’ll come home to the Church soon. :crossrc:
 
Another one of those moms here… and what is ironic is that I initially started looking into the Catholic church after 16 years of marriage because I was sure that if I started going to the Catholic church it would revive my hubby’s interest in spiritual matters. Well, I eventually fell in love with the church, am now confirmed and love love love to attend Mass.

However, my DH (a cradle Catholic but barely practicing) doesn’t attend church very often at all. He is too tired usually, has to go to work or work at home (even if he doesn’t really do much work), or whatever. He usually will give some “reason”, which really doesn’t hold water, but I figure it is between him and the Lord and so I work hard to not nag.
 
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Another one of those moms here… and what is ironic is that I initially started looking into the Catholic church after 16 years of marriage because I was sure that if I started going to the Catholic church it would revive my hubby’s interest in spiritual matters. Well, I eventually fell in love with the church, am now confirmed and love love love to attend Mass.

However, my DH (a cradle Catholic but barely practicing) doesn’t attend church very often at all. He is too tired usually, has to go to work or work at home (even if he doesn’t really do much work), or whatever. He usually will give some “reason”, which really doesn’t hold water, but I figure it is between him and the Lord and so I work hard to not nag.
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This sounds familiar.

I married my non-Catholic husband because I was away from the Church at the time and felt that it really didn’t matter. Boy, did God prove me wrong 5 years later! Now, I attend Mass with my boys - DH usually stays at home. He no longer practices his Anglican faith, so at this point in time, all I can do is pray that he comes back to a belief in Jesus Christ.

Though my parents always stressed to us kids to make sure we marry a Catholic, many times, the world gets a hold of us instead of God. I know if my faith had been stronger back when I met my husband, I would not have married him. I trust in God’s wisdom in bringing to me my husband - and I know that through me, and the grace of God, I hope to lead him into the fullness of the Truth in the Catholic Church.

It might be working - he has expressed some interest in converting!🙂
 
Frank, it is not limited to Catholic women marrying non-Catholic men. Tons of Catholic men date and marry non-Catholic women.

And, the answer is because they (men and women) have been poorly catechized and are foolishly short-sighted. Simply, they aren’t thinking straight or they wouldn’t get involved with a non-Catohlic in the first place.
 
Not married, but I did date a nonCatholic until fairly recently. And it wasn’t because I wasn’t “thinking straight”. I dated him because he was (and still is) my best friend and we knew we held a connection, so we were seeing where this connection would lead to. We thought we could work through the difference in faith. However, we didn’t, and the distance was too stressful, so we’re just good friends now.

Not everyone who’s married to a nonCatholic is poorly catechized. My Protestant aunt married a Catholic, her daughters are being raised Catholic, and now she’s thinking of converting! Some of these ladies may be converts while their husbands haven’t expressed an interest. Maybe some people fell away and didn’t come back till after they got married. Or maybe, with careful prayer and discernment, they willingly entered the marriage, knowing full well what they were getting into ,and agree to adhere to Church teachings and raise their kids Catholic.

Knowing what I know now, I probably will not date someone who isn’t at least Christian but at the same time, that’s difficult. My ex was Christian when we started dating but he fell away. Sometimes that happens in a marriage, where one spouse falls away. You simply can’t judge why spouses won’t come to Mass.
 
1ke said:
Frank, it is not limited to Catholic women marrying non-Catholic men. Tons of Catholic men date and marry non-Catholic women.

And, the answer is because they (men and women) have been poorly catechized and are foolishly short-sighted. Simply, they aren’t thinking straight or they wouldn’t get involved with a non-Catohlic in the first place.
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This is a terrible, hurtful post. Did you ever think that you can’t control who you fall in love with? Or that perhaps, as in my case, I believe one of the purposes in my life is to be Christ’s light to my husband, to hopefully lead him to the Catholic faith someday? I am a strong Catholic (been Catholic since birth) and I am raising our daughter Catholic. My husband is a Christian man but not Catholic, and that’s tough for me, but I trust in God’s plan for my life, for our lives.

Sometimes I think about how much easier it would be if I were married to a Catholic. But easy isn’t what following Jesus is about. Perhaps this is my cross to bear, and one day it will be lifted from me. I pray that my husband will find his faith in our church, and I trust God with helping that to happen.
 
I was born and raised Catholic in Boston and most everyone I knew was Catholic. I went to religous education faithfully at our parish school with the nuns of St. Joseph. We also had what was called “release time” on thurday afternoon. We got out of school early and all went to their respective church for more education. My church had it with semimarians for a couple of hours. It was different from the cathecism study with the nuns. It was discussion, more scriptural and we had questions and discussion. We also had many Novenas we all attended at our parish. Many groups as Franciscans came and we prayed, sang and had lectures.
I believe I was well Catechized.
I met my husband when I was 20. We fell in love. He asked me to marry him. We went and talked with my parish priest about 6 months before setting a date. My husband a Lutheran agreed to marry in my parish, he agreed to raise any possible children as Catholics, He agreed that he would never interfer with my practice of Catholocism.
We have been married since 9/8/68 and I have attended church. He comes for weddings, Baptisms, funerals, Easter, Christmas.
He was very impressed and toured all of Rome, and loved it. I pray that one day the Spirit will put in his heart to “Come Home” to the church .
It may be easier for some to marry a devout Catholic, I would agree. I do want to state though you can be well catechized, a devout Catholic, and be married to a Protestant.
DonnaG
 
Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but THIS very well-catechized person had two sets of guy friends in college. One set went into the seminary because their faith was that important. So I couldn’t marry them. The other set drank like fishes, chased skirts, didn’t go to church and behaved like party boys.

I fell in love with someone who SEEMED to be prudent, sober and responsible. And he “converted” before the marriage. But he wasn’t what he seemed and I ended up being one of those single Catholic mothers you observe in church, trying to single-handedly instill the Faith in my children.

I don’t know. Maybe if more Catholic men would live up to their faith, they’d seem more appealing to the nice Catholic girls when it comes time to marry. It is a sad state of affairs when a non-Catholic can seem to have more in common with you than the cradle Catholics who don’t seem to care much for their faith.
 
When I married my Jewish husband I had been away from the Church for years. It never crossed my mind that I would come back. Three years after we were married, I had a change of heart and I did return to the Church. It had nothing whatsoever to do with poor catechesis. My parents had a mixed marriage also, as my mother was not Catholic.
 
Why do you ignore the following verses :

(1 Corinthians 7:12 - 14)

12 But to the rest I say, not the Lord, that if any brother has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he must not divorce her.

13And a woman who has an unbelieving husband, and he consents to live with her, she must not send her husband away.

14For the unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy.

Quite frankly, my husband is more of a believer/christan than my former catholic boyfriend.

My catholic sisters go to mass alone, because their catholic husbands are in a state of mortal sin.
 
Being fed a stedy diet of movies, romance novels, soap operas and cheesy pop culture makes people believe the lie " you can’t control who you fall in love with".

Love is a CHOICE. Unless one is stranded on the proverbial desert island with one person of the opposite sex - we choose to go out with people, choose to get emotionally involved and CHOOSE to love them.

It is very hard to control whom you fall in “lust” with - when we let our passions and emotions override our mind, then, spiritual things get tossed in the back seat.

We need to teach our kids and our young people to put faith #1 on your “list of things to look for in a guy/girl” -
 
kage_ar said:
It is very hard to control whom you fall in “lust” with - when we let our passions and emotions override our mind, then, spiritual things get tossed in the back seat." -
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What a bigotted remark! People who marry non-catholics do not necessary fall in “lust” with them. Sometimes they are the rational choice.
 
St_Gabriel said:
What a bigotted remark! People who marry non-catholics do not necessary fall in “lust” with them. Sometimes they are the rational choice.
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For a Catholic, how could a non-Catholic be the rational choice for a spouse? It is rational to marry for life someone with whom you do not share the most important thing in life? Raising children who have to decide who is right and wrong about faith?

Cannot see the rationale there.
 
kage_ar said:
We need to teach our kids and our young people to put faith #1 on your “list of things to look for in a guy/girl” -
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Before I was engaged (or had even met my husband) I pictured what my future husband would be: a Catholic man who would be a wonderful husband, father, and friend.

My life now: I am married to a Christian man who is a wonderful husband, father, and friend. Our daughter is being (and any future children will be) raised Catholic. I pray God will lead him to our Catholic faith, and I hope I can be part of that. I hope and pray I will be a good enough example of Catholic faith that he will want to become Catholic too.

When you ride the high horse, don’t forget you have a long way to fall if the ride gets bumpy. Be kind to others - many of us are trying our best to bring our spouses/family members to Jesus, and making us feel bad about loving non-Catholics isn’t very Christ-like. 😦
 
To judge by what you view in the pew is to draw a conclusion to something which you most likely know nothing about. Perhaps some of the women are married to Catholic men who do not attend Mass; perhaps some women have a husband who must work crazy hours and attends a different Mass; perhaps some of these women converted to the Faith since their marriage. I know not what goes on in the homes of others, and know that sometimes people are just doing the very best they personally know how. Sometimes the answers are none of our business. 😉

Peace be with you,

Kelly
FrankLawrence said:
Why do so many Catholic women marry non-Catholic men? Why are there so many Catholic women who come to Mass with their young children, yet NO HUSBAND present with them at Mass? Why do so many Catholic women ignore 2 Corinthians 6:14, and not make the fact that a man is a practicing Catholic an absolute prerequisite to even grant him a first date? Why do so many Catholic women not consider that he shares her Catholic faith to be a necessary non-negotiable personality trait in a life-time partner? I’m not here to make judgements or point fingers. I’m just seeking answers.
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kage_ar said:
For a Catholic, how could a non-Catholic be the rational choice for a spouse? It is rational to marry for life someone with whom you do not share the most important thing in life? Raising children who have to decide who is right and wrong about faith?

Cannot see the rationale there.
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It’s not like we married atheists…come on.
 
/Quote: Kage-er For a Catholic, how could a non-Catholic be the rational choice for a spouse? It is rational to marry for life someone with whom you do not share the most important thing in life? Raising children who have to decide who is right and wrong about faith?

Cannot see the rationale there. Quote\

If one is called to the vocation of married life, which is more rational?

Man 1: Pushes his girlfriend towards mortal sin, doesn’t go to mass, doesn’t care about the faith, sleeps around, addicted to porn. He is Catholic.

Man 2: Waits for his girlfriend, agrees to baptise and raise the children catholic, never cheats on his girlfriend. He is not Catholic.

I’m not going to argue with you.
 
Frank, you’ve had a couple of threads in a row now where you’ve jumped to an extremely biased conclusion based on very little evidence. I know I am also guilty of ‘people watching’ and the judgment that goes with it, so let us both pray for more mercy when making judgments and a stronger ‘custody of our eyes’ so that we aren’t doing a lot of idling watching to begin with!
 
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