Fiancé agreed to become baptized but refuses to tell family

[strugglingbeforewed]

Hello,

First time posting but seeking advice. I am engaged to be married in about a month. My fiancé has agreed to be baptized, however, the process has not made him a true believer. He does not want to perform a sign of the cross, says he will only attend mass sometimes and does not want to go to confession. All this time I am continuing to pray and proceed with the classes with our priest, hoping that God is using me to bring him closer to Him and that or perhaps once he is baptized the Holy Spirit will open his heart and mind to God. He is not enjoying it one bit.

What really is bothering me is he refuses to tell his parents. He says they will feel betrayed (they are a non practicing Methodist, he is not baptized) and that they will judge him because they know that’s why unlike him. He is embarrassed, sometimes I feel it’s a bit of a pride issue. I am worried that they will find out at our wedding and be even more upset, I also worry to live a life in secret and lying. I have talked to him about it and he just refuses out of what I feel is shame.

Other than this, we get along very well. However it hurts my heart deeply as my faith and especially faith in marriage is so important to me. I guess my question is if I am being impatient, hoping for a miraculous conversion, or if it is justified to feel hurt by his hiding. I guess it is hard for me to relate as a cradle Catholic who is 100% convinced in our faith. I apologize for the novel.

 

[Elf01]

says he will only attend mass sometimes and does not want to go to confession

I’d be more concerned about this and how to deal with children.

I also worry to live a life in secret and lying.

That is a valid concern.

Honestly, I get the impression that he’s only getting baptized to please you and as a result it would probably be better to wait and pray for a true conversion.

 

[TheLittleLady]

When an adult is baptized, they also receive Confirmation and First Communion at the same time. Your fiancee is telling you that he plans to do this then begin to not practice the Faith, he plans to make Baptismal promises then break them.

Make your priest aware of your fiancee’s statements.

 

[Xanthippe_Voorhees]

I don’t think not wanting to tell his family is a red flag.

Coming from an area that is highly puritanical I can even understand the not wanting to do the sign of the cross. Culturaly, I live in an area where you don’t do things that are “wierd” or different. I remember when my college’s basketball team played a southern state. We cheered in a dignified way, our band was very proper and we dressed in school tee shirts and jeans. The southern school? They looked wild and unkempt. They painted their faces and did up their hair. They had “expressive” teeshirts on declaring the unholy places we could go. They shouted randomly, they were boisterous and obnoxious.

But that was their norm. I don’t think I would ever be comfortable acting that way. So I give him some credit there.

Also-how is his relationship with his parents? If I thought something was going to offend my parents I would hide it from them. My husband and I met online—we hid it from our parents with the white lie that we first met at Church—since indeed, that’s where we first physically met.

However, the foot-dragging, the refusal to go to Confession, and Mass etc is a red flag. If he’s going to convert, he needs to understand what he’s getting into.

 

[1ke]

My fiancé has agreed to be baptized, however, the process has not made him a true believer.

Then he isn’t ready to be baptized. This is something for him to discuss with the priest.

All this time I am continuing to pray and proceed with the classes with our priest, hoping that God is using me to bring him closer to Him and that or perhaps once he is baptized the Holy Spirit will open his heart and mind to God. He is not enjoying it one bit.

It is a really BAD idea to marry someone hoping they will become what you want them to be.

You need to marry the man he is, not the man you want him to be.

There is NO reason for him to be baptized if he is not a believer, and many reasons for him NOT to be baptized if this is the case.

Other than this, we get along very well.

Other than this? This is a MAJOR issue-- and it’s your issue, not his. He shouldn’t be bullied into being baptized or telling his parents or anything else.

However it hurts my heart deeply as my faith and especially faith in marriage is so important to me. I guess my question is if I am being impatient, hoping for a miraculous conversion, or if it is justified to feel hurt by his hiding.

You are being foolish to marry a non-believer if what you want to marry is a believer. You are being foolish believing he will magically become a believer. You are being foolish trying to make him into what you want him to be instead of appreciating him for who he is.

No one here can tell you whether you should marry him. But I can tell you not to marry someone you will be perpetually disappointed in or who you cannot accept just as they are right now, 100%. If the most important thing is marrying a Catholic, then this man isn’t for you. If the most important thing is marrying him, then go in with your eyes open that he is not a believer and may never be, and that’s not up to you.

 

[DarkLight]

No one here can tell you whether you should marry him. But I can tell you not to marry someone you will be perpetually disappointed in or who you cannot accept just as they are right now, 100%. If the most important thing is marrying a Catholic, then this man isn’t for you. If the most important thing is marrying him, then go in with your eyes open that he is not a believer and may never be, and that’s not up to you.

Yes. These are harsh words, true, but they are correct. A priest would not even agree to baptize this man with his current intentions. He is not someone seeking to truly convert, but to jump through a hoop to get you to marry.

 

[EnglishTeacher]

My fiancé has agreed to be baptized, however, the process has not made him a true believer. He does not want to perform a sign of the cross, says he will only attend mass sometimes and does not want to go to confession

This here is the heart of the matter. His refusing to tell his family is merely a side issue.

With all due respect, you are focusing on the wrong problem. If he does not believe and does not intend to practice the faith, he should not be baptized.

 

[Lou2U]

1ke is absolutely right. If your fiance doesn’t believe in a religion, he should not be baptised into that religion and if he doesn’t want to follow what that religion teaches, he should not be making a public statement suggesting otherwise.

It sounds like he’s doing it to please you, which is wrong. And it sounds like you’re hoping if he fakes it enough, eventually he’ll come around, which is wrong. Honestly, I’m not surprised he won’t tell his parents - why should he when it’s not something he wants for himself? Why should he when he isn’t willing to implement any of his ‘religion’ into his life?

Your issue here is you’re not marrying the man you have, you’re marrying the man you think you might have at some point in the future. And his issue is that he’s getting married to you knowing in his heart that he isn’t the man you want him to be. That’s a serious problem.

 

[Mintaka]

1. You don’t need to panic. You are allowed to marry someone who’s not baptized; just talk to your bishop/diocese and get a dispensation. You are also allowed to wait to get married (and for him to get baptized) until he really is sure. So you have two choices; you are not in a corner and neither is he.
2. I agree that you shouldn’t encourage your fiance get baptized, unless he really wants to do it. Living a lie is wrong, and mentally preparing to sin is wrong. Of course people don’t have to have theology degrees to get baptized, but this sounds pretty weak. OTOH, it’s always possible that he’s just sounding pouty, and he’s closer than you think to conversion. But… baptism of an adult is not supposed to be done for reasons of wishful thinking, and it’s a really bad foundation for marriage too!
3. In my part of the country, Methodists usually get baptized, so yeah, I guess they aren’t practicing.
4. You (and your fiance) sound like you’re not totally sure that you’re ready to get married. You really can still back off and wait a bit longer.
5. Your fiance might like “practicing being a Catholic” to get used to it - has he been attending Mass with you on a regular basis, for instance?
6. You and your fiance need to have a good long talk with each other and with your priest. Tell your fiance that you want him to be eternally happy and to be sure. You love him so much that you don’t want to keep him from getting all his ducks in a row first. You want to be with him, but you don’t want to push him unfairly.
7. Don’t panic! Sometimes these things fall into place all of a sudden. Sometimes people sound less ready and more unwilling than they actually are, and this often comes right before serious conversion. But loosening up your time table for getting married is probably a good idea.

 

[cmjmevans]

If he’s not Baptized yet he doesn’t know what he wants. My guess is he’ll become on fire for the Lord and you’ll wish you had the other guy back lol

 

[Charybdis]

I know that entering marriage can be scary, etc. with all the unknowns and all that, BUT in general, if you are already worrying, hoping, praying, wanting, him to be this or do this or think you can change him or think he will change, then you need to wait awhile longer.

Once you are married, if you badger him or are disappointed in him for not getting baptized and entering the church, then those things will only be magnified and he will see you as nagging, blaming him. What really has me worried for you is your statement that faith is very important to you and especially faith in marriage. Then the question must be asked: why marry this man if he has no faith? This will be a big problem if it’s important to you but not to him.

This is not a good situation to start a new happy marriage. Please think long and hard about these things. Many people are blinded by love that they sweep these types of things under the rug. But they can and do play havoc with families later on, especially when children enter the picture.

Remember, that as a Catholic, you make a solemn vow to try to raise any children you have in the Catholic faith. He must know and be made aware of this as well.

Good luck and God Bless!

 

[StPancake]

Change is inevitable in life. However, how he is now, may be as good as it gets. It appears that having a partner in faith is important to you. You need to know if your being in a non faith filled marriage will make you miserable.

Regardless of what he believes now, RCIA can be a very transformative process. It is not unusual for many that go through the program, to do it to make a spouse or fiance happy and then experience profound change through the process. When God and prayer are involved, the work can be far above our own understanding and your and our collective faith can help the results. The entire church, the Pope, the Bishops, the Priests, the religious and the faithful are praying for the Catechumen. They are praying for true conversion. Regardless of how he feels now, your fiance can be converted and learn to embrace the church.

This does not guarantee he will be converted as there is evil versus the good and Satan is a crafty being. He might convert, sincerely and Satan may go after him and try to knock him from the path. I think all of us can see the influence of Satan and our failures to sin. We all fail, including the Pope, Bishops, Priests and Religious.

I have a good friend that is one of the best lay Catechist I’ve met. She is a former teacher and business woman, a cradle Catholic with the ability to work with converts. She has been married more than forty years to a Mormon. He is a nice decent man and honestly, it causes her great angst that he is not Catholic but she is certain that this is the man she was meant to marry. She would tell you that his different religion has caused her, through her life to grow closer to God as she has spent thousands of hours communicating with the creator about it. A religiously mix marriage can work.

Even if you were both Catholic, in most marriages, there seems to be one that is much more spiritually involved than the other. I’m a convert from the Baptist faith tradition and my wife still is. Her Christianity is more casual than mine and her beliefs are different. I know what she believes and I pray for her daily as do many of my friends. I would love for her to come home to the Church, but if nothing else, I would love to see her spend more time with God. Pray with me please.

_

 

[LOR]

My stepson was raised in a secular home, but occasionally, I understand, went to a Baptist church with his mother. He met a lovely Catholic woman, actually a girl, as they first met in junior high school. Years later, they ran into each other again at a reunion. He went through RCIA when they decided to get married, was baptised, and is now an usher at their church. He says grace. Their teenage daughter is involved in their church. He encourages her to keep the Bible on her iPod. I was overjoyed to hear that, when my husband (his Dad) visited the family they went to Palm Sunday Mass together.

With that said, I might want to pat your arm as a grandma talking to somebody who wants to get married and say, “I invited my whole family to come to my adult baptism as a Lutheran and nobody came except my Mom. Not even my husband. But, nobody turned their back on me. I found out later that when I was at church, my raised Catholic husband was watching EWTN.” So, family will probably not turn on him or you, but I agree, it might be a good idea to wait and think this through a little longer.

(P.S. It was difficult being a Lutheran married to somebody from a Catholic family who said he’d been taught in the '50s not to attend a Protestant service. I’m not sure if he was confused and was just reminded not to participate in the bread and wine, or if he was really taught not to attend. He did go to Catholic school. He came once, when we had a concert and I played in the bell choir. Believe me, the pastor was delighted to meet him. Still, it is difficult. It was awkward for me as a married woman to attend services by myself. I know they all had good intentions of welcoming all comers whether their spouses came or not, but a lot of the members were established couples and families and I kept feeling a little bit on the spot – a rogue single woman, as it were.)

 

[1ke]

he was really taught not to attend.

He was really taught not to attend.

Because under older canon law, past Papal and Curial documents, Catholics were not to attend Protestant services. These sorts of disciplines arose during and after the Reformation for obvious reasons, so as not to foster indifferentism or confusion among the faithful.

We should still not attend with regularly without good reason, such as a mixed marriage situation, and without being under pastoral care.

 

[LOR]

Thank you, 1ke. Sometimes this question comes up on the question and answer shows on EWTN radio (I hear the 10:00 rebroadcasts) as well as on Catholic Answers Live, but I haven’t listened for a while.

 

[TechieGuy]

If I were in this situation, I’d ask myself if I would marry this person even if they were not baptized.

If so, I’d tell him that he can hold off on that until he wanted to do so and get a dispensation to marry him as an unbaptized person.

And then I’d never bug him about it again.

Because it sounds like he’s doing this for you and not because he want to.