Discerning marriage to a non-Catholic Christian

[chevalier]

For people in mixed marriages, what are the biggest challenges in your marriage, that I should be discussing now before deciding anything?

From someone who’s dodged that, several times:

Agreeing on what to teach the kids. Which means the Catholic faith, not two faiths, not something eclectic, not following the same sex parent’s faith, just Catholic. Including life matters and sexual ethics. This means you telling your son no, it’s not just booty calls, even sex with a committed girlfriend is not okay, and telling your daughter nope, the pill’s not okay either — even if it the other parent believes otherwise. Which, of course, is kind of frequent among non-Catholics, and let’s be honest: among Catholics too, including practicing Catholics.

For the non-Catholic (or partially dissenting Catholics) that means being unable to transmit one’s values and beliefs to one’s children and being shut out of or relegated to the backseat in a large part of their upbringing. And that, of course, is extremely hard to bear.

If willing to make that sacrifice, there’s still the problem of how the sacrifice will affect the non-Catholic party and the marriage — will there be harmony and joy, or will there be resentment?

And this is not just canon law, not ceremonial or formal or even policy rules. This goes straight to the commandments and hence salvation.

Obviously, this kind of sacrifice would likely be impossible to make for a committed practicing believer. Common wisdom says non-practicing ones work out better. However, being married to someone who believes religion x is true but still decides not to practice it… that feels upsetting enough on its own already. But if the gentleman you write about believes denominational differences aren’t crucial to salvation, then perhaps he would make the sacrifice. After all, it’s not like anyone believes that stricter sexual mores is going to be detrimental to one’s children’s salvation, that would be quite absurd.

If you end up becoming single again because of it, well, I can’t say I don’t know the feeling.

 

[chevalier]

A man who’s found the Lord would not find it acceptable to pressure a woman into sexual acts.

Spiritus quidem promptus est sed caro infirma. People do the evil they don’t want to do, without considering the evil acceptable. That’s how temptation works.

I think you really are selling yourself short. You seem to think this man is the best you can do. Personally, if this was the best I could do I’d rather stay single.

Sounds like my dad.

 

[NovusFidem]

From someone who’s dodged that, several times:

Agreeing on what to teach the kids. Which means the Catholic faith, not two faiths, not something eclectic, not following the same sex parent’s faith, just Catholic. Including life matters and sexual ethics. This means you telling your son no, it’s not just booty calls, even sex with a committed girlfriend is not okay, and telling your daughter nope, the pill’s not okay either — even if it the other parent believes otherwise. Which, of course, is kind of frequent among non-Catholics, and let’s be honest: among Catholics too, including practicing Catholics.

Thank you, chevalier!

On the sexual ethics, he mostly agrees with me. Sex before marriage, never. The problem is just that what constitutes sex to me (say, touching), doesn’t count for him. That’s where I had to step up and say stop. He agreed to withhold from getting alone because he understood that “us+alone=probably-doing-something-we’d-regret”, but he doesn’t see the inherently sinful aspect of what we have done. But we often discuss this; I will try to ask how he’d feel if it was his daughter.

For the non-Catholic (or partially dissenting Catholics) that means being unable to transmit one’s values and beliefs to one’s children and being shut out of or relegated to the backseat in a large part of their upbringing. And that, of course, is extremely hard to bear.

If willing to make that sacrifice, there’s still the problem of how the sacrifice will affect the non-Catholic party and the marriage — will there be harmony and joy, or will there be resentment?

He agrees to have any children we have to be raised Catholic. My fear with this is precisely resentment. While I can picture myself with only the kids on the pews, I don’t think he has considered how it will feel for him to go alone to his church meetings, or just with me.

But if the gentleman you write about believes denominational differences aren’t crucial to salvation, then perhaps he would make the sacrifice.

He says that he will. But we all know how theory and practice works sometimes…

If you end up becoming single again because of it, well, I can’t say I don’t know the feeling.

Thank you for the help! If I end up single again, I might just give up already. Dating was never my cup of tea; I’d rather my father just arrange something and be done with it already. :ehh:

 

[NovusFidem]

Spiritus quidem promptus est sed caro infirma. People do the evil they don’t want to do, without considering the evil acceptable. That’s how temptation works.

I think I’ll tattoo that on my forehead. So true :bounce:

Sounds like my dad.

Who does?

 

[NovusFidem]

He is coming to visit my family Saturday night, after his music class. He just asked if there is Mass that night, saying that we could go together again (he went with me last Sunday)…

 

[Estevao]

On the sexual ethics, he mostly agrees with me. Sex before marriage, never. The problem is just that what constitutes sex to me (say, touching), doesn’t count for him. That’s where I had to step up and say stop. He agreed to withhold from getting alone because he understood that “us+alone=probably-doing-something-we’d-regret”, but he doesn’t see the inherently sinful aspect of what we have done. But we often discuss this; I will try to ask how he’d feel if it was his daughter.

I think this video by a Catholic priest would be helpful if you wanted some more reasons to share with your boyfriend. I presume you speak portuguese…

Quais são as carícias permitidas no namoro?
youtube.com/watch?v=1tNsIC2T8mA

 

[NovusFidem]

I think this video by a Catholic priest would be helpful if you wanted some more reasons to share with your boyfriend. I presume you speak portuguese…

Quais são as carícias permitidas no namoro?
youtube.com/watch?v=1tNsIC2T8mA

You presume correctly

I’m a huge fan of Pe. Paulo Ricardo, I’ve already seen that one, thank you! I decided to fully return to the Church thanks to him. Before that I was Catholic, but just barely

I’ll send him the video, actually. I know what is allowed, both while dating and married, the problem is like they often say: avoid near occasion of sin. Once we start with something as stupid as kissing, things may evolve without we noticing.

 

[Estevao]

Oh cool. I owe my being a Catholic to Pe. Paulo too. It was a great grace when I randomly found one of his videos in 2011.

As other posters have said, you’ll want to slow things down so that you can discern with your reason and not your emotions. I still remember my first relationship. I thought she was perfect, but now I see that she was totally not meant for me. I thought I ‘hit the jackpot’ too, but my mind was clouded with emotions and idolatry of her.

 

[NovusFidem]

Oh cool. I owe my being a Catholic to Pe. Paulo too. It was a great grace when I randomly found one of his videos in 2011.

As other posters have said, you’ll want to slow things down so that you can discern with your reason and not your emotions. I still remember my first relationship. I thought she was perfect, but now I see that she was totally not meant for me. I thought I ‘hit the jackpot’ too, but my mind was clouded with emotions and idolatry of her.

Thanks!

Was there any sign that you were blind to, that I should be aware of? I don’t really feel “in love”, never have actually, so if I’m a bit scared that I might be fooling myself

 

[chevalier]

Thank you, chevalier!

On the sexual ethics, he mostly agrees with me. Sex before marriage, never. The problem is just that what constitutes sex to me (say, touching), doesn’t count for him. That’s where I had to step up and say stop. He agreed to withhold from getting alone because he understood that “us+alone=probably-doing-something-we’d-regret”, but he doesn’t see the inherently sinful aspect of what we have done. But we often discuss this;

Sounds like a bad case of human male trying to justify his desires or finding it hard to accept the limits would be stricter than he’d previously thought.

I will try to ask how he’d feel if it was his daughter.

Good one. I’ve used it as a question to ask myself.

Also, the whole point is not about, if you excuse the wording, ‘what goes where’, it’s about sexual pleasure (something to either cause or release sexual tension) being a no-go zone. Sexual pleasure is the byproduct of procreation and is simply not meant for us poor singles.

He agrees to have any children we have to be raised Catholic. My fear with this is precisely resentment. While I can picture myself with only the kids on the pews, I don’t think he has considered how it will feel for him to go alone to his church meetings, or just with me.

Possibly older children, I guess, though for the young ones that could be too confusing. Apart from the possibility of resentment (not impossibly leading up to eventual abandoment) you also need to consider how long the arrangement will last.

He says that he will. But we all know how theory and practice works sometimes…

Oh don’t I.

If I end up single again, I might just give up already.

I always said that and look what it gets me. (Yeah, nursing a bad heartache, and yeah, some undefined possibility of not exactly coinciding beliefs on important matters possibly in the picture. Prayed to God to please solve the matter according to His will, and never got my calls or texts returned after. Typical chev luck.)

Dating was never my cup of tea;

I consider myself pretty good at the game (despite my epic lack of luck in terms of ultimate outcomes), but the system’s broken and I’ve little praise to offer for it.

I’d rather my father just arrange something and be done with it already. :ehh:

Wisdom comes with age. I’ve been tempted to ask my mother, believe me.

But men are predators by nature, so the hunt calls, sooner or later, eventually.

Who does?

Our fellow poster by name of ToeInTheWater, quoted just before.

My father apparently thinks I ought to marry an angel, otherwise I’m selling myself short. To which I retort, ‘But that would be like 1000 times better than I am.’ And then he says, ‘And that’s the point.’ But most of the time he’s quite serious, and quite persuasive.

 

[NovusFidem]

Sounds like a bad case of human male trying to justify his desires or finding it hard to accept the limits would be stricter than he’d previously thought.

I always thought it was mostly his Protestant upbringing. What with all “do this”, “don’t do that”, with little explanation as to why. I keep trying to teach him, but I’m an unreliable source sometimes, enabling him and all…

Also, the whole point is not about, if you excuse the wording, ‘what goes where’, it’s about sexual pleasure (something to either cause or release sexual tension) being a no-go zone. Sexual pleasure is the byproduct of procreation and is simply not meant for us poor singles.

A kiss can be just a kiss, or can lead up to something more serious. I know that just a kiss, or a hug, is not a sinful act; but I got to know myself better these months, so I’m not going to risk it on the premise that “we know better now”. He can hold my hand, or nothing at all

Possibly older children, I guess, though for the young ones that could be too confusing. Apart from the possibility of resentment (not impossibly leading up to eventual abandoment) you also need to consider how long the arrangement will last.

He will probably come with us on Sunday Mass; he likes churches in general. It’s like me with Jehovah’s Witnesses: I might disagree with what they are saying, but I’m always willing to listen to their readings of the bible. (and discuss with them here and there, but still)

I always said that and look what it gets me. (Yeah, nursing a bad heartache, and yeah, some undefined possibility of not exactly coinciding beliefs on important matters possibly in the picture. Prayed to God to please solve the matter according to His will, and never got my calls or texts returned after. Typical chev luck.)

I consider myself pretty good at the game (despite my epic lack of luck in terms of ultimate outcomes), but the system’s broken and I’ve little praise to offer for it.

Never felt like playing the game. People ruined the meaning of marriage already. A friend asked me why did we start to date right away, instead of going through the steps of “just seeing each other” and “it’s complicated”

Wisdom comes with age. I’ve been tempted to ask my mother, believe me.

If you ever do, tell me how it goes! Thought my mom really likes him, so she’s already biased on this matter…

But men are predators by nature, so the hunt calls, sooner or later, eventually.

He often tells me that too…

Our fellow poster by name of ToeInTheWater, quoted just before.

 

[NovusFidem]

My father apparently thinks I ought to marry an angel, otherwise I’m selling myself short. To which I retort, ‘But that would be like 1000 times better than I am.’ And then he says, ‘And that’s the point.’ But most of the time he’s quite serious, and quite persuasive.

I don’t even know your father, but it looks like he is right. Now tell me how to identify the good ones, because everyone who’ve met him says he is a wonderful man, and yet here I am, trusting strangers on the internet (Take that, mom! ), because you guys can be more impartial to all this, and are actually finding more needles in the haysack than I did

No one is perfect, period. His faults until now don’t look heavy enough for me to give him up yet. He may be insistent sometimes, and always in the heat of the moment (who have never been tempted, raise theirs hands!), but abusive? So far, no.

Do I want to keep slapping his hand for the rest of my life? Not really. Kudos to you guys, I’ll be working this aspect now; it’ll be a deal breaker if he doesn’t change, but I believe that people can change

 

[Estevao]

Thanks!

Was there any sign that you were blind to, that I should be aware of? I don’t really feel “in love”, never have actually, so if I’m a bit scared that I might be fooling myself

For me it was that we didn’t share fundamental values about right and wrong and about the meaning of life. I could see hints this, times when I thought ‘hmm, I don’t approve of that line of thinking’, but we were having such a good time I just ignored it.

At the beginning, the relationship can seem all about having fun, so much fun that a discussion about our shared values never happened because but it would have been a ‘drag’. And most couples (as I gather from observation, at least) don’t spend much time having serious conversations. But a good marriage needs these shared values.

But if we had gotten engaged, eventually we would have run into troubled times, and we wouldn’t have had the shared values and a shared vision of the meaning of life to keep us united and conflicts just would have come up.

 

[NovusFidem]

For me it was that we didn’t share fundamental values about right and wrong and about the meaning of life. I could see this, but we were having such a good time I just ignored it.

At the beginning, the relationship can seem all about having fun, so much fun that a discussion about our shared values never happened because but it would have been a ‘drag’. And most couples (as I gather from observation, at least) don’t spend much time having serious conversations. But a good marriage needs these shared values.

In the beginning, we discussed a lot about that. Specially regarding WHAT, exactly, is marriage about, and we seem to agree on that point.

Then the fun came, and we toned down the talks.

But if we had gotten engaged, eventually we would have run into troubled times, and we wouldn’t have had the shared values and a shared vision of the meaning of life to keep us united and conflicts just would have come up.

Thank you very much. I’ll ponder on this for a while

 

[EnglishTeacher]

What stood out most to me is this:

Still, I am a very cautious person; things are going so well that we are considering marriage already (he asked, I agreed), and plan to get officially engaged when we hit 1 year mark. I’m not THAT young, and I want more than one child, so we want to hurry, but I have a NEED to be cautious, and it is driving me nuts

and this:

If I end up single again, I might just give up already. Dating was never my cup of tea; I’d rather my father just arrange something and be done with it already. :ehh:

Don’t rush into a relationship and marriage with the wrong person just because you want to get married/have kids and you feel that you are running out of time. (You are still young, by the way, but I would say the same even if you were older.) When you have this attitude, even subconsciously in the back of your mind, you make yourself very vulnerable to bad decisions.

 

[ImmaCatholic]

NovusFidem,

I’m afraid I don’t have any advice (I’ve never dated) but I read through this thread and want to wish you luck with whatever you decide to pursue. You seem like a very intelligent young woman and seem to have a good heart. May God give you guidance during this time

 

[chevalier]

I always thought it was mostly his Protestant upbringing. What with all “do this”, “don’t do that”, with little explanation as to why.

Nah, exactly the same goes for Catholics with insufficient catechesis or resistance to temptation. We’re all vulnerable to temptations of various kinds. Some of us want to justify obtaining the pleasure they desire (and frankly most of us share both the desire and the tendency to justify and whitewash). Others companionship or emotional closeness. Yet others find it hard to resist demands or entreaties (or sad faces etc.) of someone they care for. None of which makes an exception from the 6th.

I keep trying to teach him, but I’m an unreliable source sometimes, enabling him and all…

It helps once you find the strength to realize that whatever you may owe to your SO, you owe more to God anyway. Also that with God’s grace you will survive the backlash resulting from sticking with His will rather than your own or someone else’s.

A kiss can be just a kiss, or can lead up to something more serious.

It involves intention but also the nature of what’s going on, so something that a reasonable person could, for example, identify rather clearly as foreplay and useless otherwise, that would be bad even if it wasn’t meant to lead to the whole thing. In other words, it matters where it starts from, rather than where it ends (or not, as it might be prevented from actually leading there, including for independent reasons outside of anyone’s control).

He will probably come with us on Sunday Mass; he likes churches in general. It’s like me with Jehovah’s Witnesses: I might disagree with what they are saying, but I’m always willing to listen to their readings of the bible. (and discuss with them here and there, but still)

My father’s favourite pastime. He just loves outtalking and converting JWs. It gives him some kind of weird pleasure.

Never felt like playing the game.

Never said I did, or that I didn’t hate it. It’s like business negotiation (haggling about prices especially), political diplomacy, interrogation techniques, advocacy/pandering to juries etc. You may hate it and hold it in contempt but still have to capable of navigating it. Hence you might technically be the better player without being nearly as enthusiastic as people who like the game.

A friend asked me why did we start to date right away, instead of going through the steps of “just seeing each other” and “it’s complicated”

There’s no just seeing each other unless you really are just seeing each other, which is rare. And any relationship with a woman is complicated.

Personally I tend to introduce special friends as friends, which is what they are, despite the (relatively small in number) special favours and courtesies that set them a bit apart. I positively hate the term ‘boyfriend’, except in dialects that do actually refer to grown men as boys.

If you ever do, tell me how it goes!

Once upon a time she saw a beggar girl. When she said, ‘Why don’t you take that one home?,’ she was sounded by no means entirely unserious, and a surreal conversation ensued that made me wonder if it was really just my mum talking. Hence, her results should be expected to be quite ground-shaking.

Thought my mom really likes him, so she’s already biased on this matter…

Different things tend to appeal to mothers than to daughters. Age and maturity but also the force of habits and removal from the frontlines of the game and lack of interest in actually finding a mate make a ton of difference.

He often tells me that too…

Then he sounds like a rather open person.

 

[Mary_Gail_36]

A man who, from the beginning, has pushed your boundaries and failed to respect them.
A man who shows petulant, child like behavior when he doesn’t get his way.
A man who has rushed to talk marriage to you after a very short period.
A man who has a “weird” relationship with his brother.
A man whose religion would classify him as “in trouble” for dating you and whose personal beliefs are fluid and not compatible with Catholicism.

You have not hit the jackpot, dear. And I am afraid your vision is clouded. Step back, set baoundaries, and let actions speak louder than words. And put the breaks on the marriage talk.

Good advice, I agree completely.

The part about her being weak and him still requesting bothered me. If they were both weak and both decided to be chaste, it would be one thing. But she’s the enforcer of his behavior. Not a good thing.

 

[chevalier]

Good advice, I agree completely.

The part about her being weak and him still requesting bothered me. If they were both weak and both decided to be chaste, it would be one thing. But she’s the enforcer of his behavior. Not a good thing.

She shouldn’t have to play mother with him (even though she should play mother if she does have to), but on the other hand you just can’t expect a human being to not only passively accept but even also actively get out of his way to adhere to a rule he feels half-hearted about (that the feeling is not correct is a different matter). Human nature doesn’t work that way. Some very disciplined people police themselves very stringently to comply with decisions of their superiors that they disagree with or feel harmed by (e.g. monastics, military personnel), but things are different between equals in a joint enterprise, evening concerning perfectly legitimate requests. Hence, while there is certainly a practical and moral difficulty, I can’t really see an extraordinary character flaw there.

 

[SuperHappy]

You say you can imagine yourself sitting alone with your children in the pew but I honestly don’t think you have any idea how hard that actually is.

You will see families sitting together with their children and your children will wonder “why is my dad not here?” It’s harsh. And it will be up to you to explain that their daddy doesn’t believe in the Catholic Faith. And that will cause your children to falter, if their dad doesn’t believe, why should they?

These are all things you have to think about. Your imagination and the ease of what you believe will happen are very different from the reality of the situation. Your children will be real people who will make their decisions based on what they experience. Don’t doubt that.