B
blueshells
Guest
Hi friends,
This is my first post here–whoa! I was hoping to get some insight into a family situation I have. This is going to be long. I apologize, but a lot of background is necessary.
Religion has always been a touchy subject in my family: my maternal grandparents and my aunt, uncle, and cousins are one denomination of Christianity, and my nuclear family was another until I threw a third in the mix about 6 months ago. From the time I was two, my grandmother (not my blood relative, but she married my grandfather right after I was born) got my grandfather and my aunt, uncle, and cousins really involved in their church, which was a really exclusive Protestant denomination. If we went with them, we weren’t allowed to participate, and she would often tell us that illnesses or problems were because we didn’t love God enough or properly. When I was 13, I got confirmed in my parents’ church, and that was the day that my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins walked out of our lives–we were written out of the will, phone calls and visits were ignored, the works. I never saw my grandmother again, and my mom and my grandfather only started talking again six years later.
When I got to college, I was really struggling with my faith (I had a brief stint as an atheist, but eventually cracked), and didn’t like the church of my denomination on campus. So I started going to the local Catholic church with my roommate, which had a really strong student community–great. I started getting more involved, going to Mass every Sunday, participating in a Bible study, going on retreats, etc. During my ‘discernment’ period, I started dating one of my really close friends from the church. He was great the entire time; he had just discerned the married life himself, and he knew that pressuring me would be the worst he could do. He just acted as a confidant whenever I was struggling and was always open for questions. When I told my parents about him, my mom immediately seized on the fact that he was Catholic and told me that I should break up with him because 1) he wouldn’t marry me if I wasn’t Catholic (not necessarily true–we had lots of talks, and I wasn’t sure if I would marry him if I wasn’t Catholic) and 2) if we did get married, I wouldn’t have the life I wanted because I’d be barefoot and pregnant all the time. Anyway, while our relationship was pretty good, it was ultimately superficial because we could only get to a certain point emotionally–there was always that block of my discernment, because both of us wanted it to be certain my conversion was a decision independent of anyone except myself and God. So we broke up after a year in the early part of this year. It was honestly a huge factor in my decision to convert, not to get him back, but because it was a huge loss in a time where everything seemed to be falling apart–I’d hit rock bottom and still found joy in Catholicism. About a month after the break-up, I went to my priest and said, “Father, I want to get confirmed. When can we make this happen?” and he replied, “How’s Wednesday?” (I know it’s a little non-traditional, but he’d been following my progress for years) So I got confirmed.
Since then, it’s been a little rough with my family. My mom will randomly call and ask what she did wrong that I’d choose a faith with values that are so contrary to hers and my father’s, and she’ll pick fights with me over small theological points or things that aren’t even related to the teachings of the Church, and she’s recently informed me that, if she’s going to be at my future wedding at all, she’s going to have to be sedated so that she doesn’t cry and scream the entire time. She also cries about how I lost every opportunity to live up to my potential because I spent so much time at church.
I’m a very non-confrontational, kumbaya, why-can’t-we-all-just-be-friends-and-hug-it-out sort of person,so the constant fighting is starting to really take a toll on my relationship with my mom. To make matters worse, my boyfriend and I are dating again (it’s much better this time around, there aren’t any blocks, we’re being very careful and deliberate in our dating and we know what the end goal is and how to get there); I haven’t told her yet, but she’s of the opinion that I wanted to convert so that he’d want to marry me, and that I converted after we broke up to get him back (it sounds that way on the surface, but that’s not at all what happened). I understand that what happened between her and my grandfather was extremely traumatic, and she’s afraid that the same thing is going to happen to me, but at the same time that doesn’t make her attacks on me okay.
Does anyone have any advice on dealing with this sort of thing? I’d rather not entirely lose a relationship with my mom, but it’s also starting to hurt me to the point where I’m not sure I can respond with good Christian love.
Sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance for the advice!
Peace.
This is my first post here–whoa! I was hoping to get some insight into a family situation I have. This is going to be long. I apologize, but a lot of background is necessary.
Religion has always been a touchy subject in my family: my maternal grandparents and my aunt, uncle, and cousins are one denomination of Christianity, and my nuclear family was another until I threw a third in the mix about 6 months ago. From the time I was two, my grandmother (not my blood relative, but she married my grandfather right after I was born) got my grandfather and my aunt, uncle, and cousins really involved in their church, which was a really exclusive Protestant denomination. If we went with them, we weren’t allowed to participate, and she would often tell us that illnesses or problems were because we didn’t love God enough or properly. When I was 13, I got confirmed in my parents’ church, and that was the day that my grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins walked out of our lives–we were written out of the will, phone calls and visits were ignored, the works. I never saw my grandmother again, and my mom and my grandfather only started talking again six years later.
When I got to college, I was really struggling with my faith (I had a brief stint as an atheist, but eventually cracked), and didn’t like the church of my denomination on campus. So I started going to the local Catholic church with my roommate, which had a really strong student community–great. I started getting more involved, going to Mass every Sunday, participating in a Bible study, going on retreats, etc. During my ‘discernment’ period, I started dating one of my really close friends from the church. He was great the entire time; he had just discerned the married life himself, and he knew that pressuring me would be the worst he could do. He just acted as a confidant whenever I was struggling and was always open for questions. When I told my parents about him, my mom immediately seized on the fact that he was Catholic and told me that I should break up with him because 1) he wouldn’t marry me if I wasn’t Catholic (not necessarily true–we had lots of talks, and I wasn’t sure if I would marry him if I wasn’t Catholic) and 2) if we did get married, I wouldn’t have the life I wanted because I’d be barefoot and pregnant all the time. Anyway, while our relationship was pretty good, it was ultimately superficial because we could only get to a certain point emotionally–there was always that block of my discernment, because both of us wanted it to be certain my conversion was a decision independent of anyone except myself and God. So we broke up after a year in the early part of this year. It was honestly a huge factor in my decision to convert, not to get him back, but because it was a huge loss in a time where everything seemed to be falling apart–I’d hit rock bottom and still found joy in Catholicism. About a month after the break-up, I went to my priest and said, “Father, I want to get confirmed. When can we make this happen?” and he replied, “How’s Wednesday?” (I know it’s a little non-traditional, but he’d been following my progress for years) So I got confirmed.
Since then, it’s been a little rough with my family. My mom will randomly call and ask what she did wrong that I’d choose a faith with values that are so contrary to hers and my father’s, and she’ll pick fights with me over small theological points or things that aren’t even related to the teachings of the Church, and she’s recently informed me that, if she’s going to be at my future wedding at all, she’s going to have to be sedated so that she doesn’t cry and scream the entire time. She also cries about how I lost every opportunity to live up to my potential because I spent so much time at church.
I’m a very non-confrontational, kumbaya, why-can’t-we-all-just-be-friends-and-hug-it-out sort of person,so the constant fighting is starting to really take a toll on my relationship with my mom. To make matters worse, my boyfriend and I are dating again (it’s much better this time around, there aren’t any blocks, we’re being very careful and deliberate in our dating and we know what the end goal is and how to get there); I haven’t told her yet, but she’s of the opinion that I wanted to convert so that he’d want to marry me, and that I converted after we broke up to get him back (it sounds that way on the surface, but that’s not at all what happened). I understand that what happened between her and my grandfather was extremely traumatic, and she’s afraid that the same thing is going to happen to me, but at the same time that doesn’t make her attacks on me okay.
Does anyone have any advice on dealing with this sort of thing? I’d rather not entirely lose a relationship with my mom, but it’s also starting to hurt me to the point where I’m not sure I can respond with good Christian love.
Sorry for the long post, and thanks in advance for the advice!
Peace.
…should help soften things up…
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