How to bring husband into the catholic church?

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He was baptized as a baby, received first communion and confirmation.
That’s the beginning and end of his spiritual journey.
I’m working my way towards the church and frankly, I want him to take this walk with me.
There is a men’s conference coming up. My girlfriend and I were plotting ways to get our husbands to go to the men’s conference.he is equally reluctant. Our original plan involved driving them to the convention center and then pretending like the car broke down and then speeding off once they got out of the car. But, we get lost all the time, so we’d probably end up dropping them off at the wrong convention center, and then we went and kidnapped our husbands for nothing! 🤷
Okay, so, any suggestions for getting a reluctant husband to open his heart? it doesn’t have to be the men’s conference specifically, though I think that would be a good place for him to go, but just something so that he’s not rolling his eyes when we go to Mass.

He’s VERY opposed to the Catholic faith, or any faith at all. He just thinks it’s all nonsense. It’s like a nice little hobby that I do, he thinks, but that it doesn’t involve him.

I know - pray. I’m already on that one. Any other suggestions? I’ve given him books to read, and he IS an avid reader, but he won’t touch any of them.
 
OK, plotting schemes will never EVER work. Not with any male I’ve ever known.

The only thing you really can do is GENTLY leave reminders of the faith in your home, car, etc. GENTLY (this of course means not every time you open your mouth) bring up the lighter aspects of Catholicism (like God’s mercy…the Divine Mercy goes well with many protestants.) GENTLY ask (again, not all the time) if they would like to attend mass with you. You certainly can’t force the faith on anyone, and we believe they must come willingly and not through coercion.

The only thing you can do not gently is pray. Pray HARD!!! 😃
 
Get involved at the Parish and bring him with.

Pray.

Know that God wants him to be Catholic more than you do!
 
kage_ar said:
Know that God wants him to be Catholic more than you do!
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Yes, this is so true. Everytime I pray for my husband’s conversion I know it’s 110% according to God’s will and so Jesus is praying alongside me for him as is Mary and all the saints and angels. It’s amazing to think, but it is the only thing in my life I know is a “definite yes” in God’s will. It’s a wonderful feeling. :love:
 
Just to clarify before more people post I was not ACTUALLY going to take my husband anywhere against his will. I just like to entertain the idea from time to time. 😃
kage_ar said:
Get involved at the Parish and bring him with.

Pray.

Know that God wants him to be Catholic more than you do!
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It’s funny you say that…I will be running VBS at church this summer, and I told him before I even signed up that this was going to require alot of work from BOTH of us. On his end, it would probably be picking up this or that, or helping build stuff, that sort of thing.
He’s totally on board with all of that.
He actually was a BIG help when we put in new carpeting at our parish.
My husband is the kindest man in the whole world. He helps everybody! It’s just getting him to even LISTEN to anything christianity has to offer that is tough. He’s wonderfully charitable, but he thinks prayers are stupid, Mass is stupid, belief in Christ is stupid.
 
Do you think he might consider listening to an audiobook? An excellent one would be Dinesh D’Souza’s “What’s So Great About Christianity?”
 
fkjuliano said:
Do you think he might consider listening to an audiobook? An excellent one would be Dinesh D’Souza’s “What’s So Great About Christianity?”
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Very good book!

Another resource is the video advertised at the top of this page “Why Be Catholic”

I will keep praying, my husband was agnostic when we married, but he NEVER said that my faith was stupid or belief and worship were stupid.
 
It reminds me of a story (could be true)…

A wife started to invite her husband to mass each Sunday… Husband would decline the invitation, but wife would go off to mass.

Week after week the invitation was given and week after week husband declined.

Then after almost a year of her inviting and his declining, wife got dressed to attend Sunday mass… As she left the house she said “Goodbye Honey, see you after Mass”… Husband said “What, aren’t you going to ask me to go this week”… Wife response was “No” … Husband said “Can you wait a minute, I will get dressed and go with you”
 
Will_B said:
It reminds me of a story (could be true)…

A wife started to invite her husband to mass each Sunday… Husband would decline the invitation, but wife would go off to mass.

Week after week the invitation was given and week after week husband declined.

Then after almost a year of her inviting and his declining, wife got dressed to attend Sunday mass… As she left the house she said “Goodbye Honey, see you after Mass”… Husband said “What, aren’t you going to ask me to go this week”… Wife response was “No” … Husband said “Can you wait a minute, I will get dressed and go with you”
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Wow, now that’s a thought!

I have a similar problem. My husband is an Evangelical and he loves the Lord with every fiber of his being. He has the usual problems with the Catholic Church or any “organized religion” as he says. He says that “religion” is “man’s concept of God”.
 
Okay, hope this isn’t considered derailing :o but what do you do with a husband who attends mass with you almost every single week. Who is uber supportive of me practicing my faith. Who attends mass with me very respectfully and even says the prayers that are the same in both protestant and catholic faiths. Who only attends “his” church every couple of months, but, yeah attends the Catholic church weekly. :confused: Who prays with me. Studies scriptures with me. Who tries to learn (if he doesn’t already know) the catholic point of view on things so he can direct me in times when I have OCD faith crises. :o Who encourages me to go to confession regularly (again major fear due to OCD,) see a priest, and really supports me in my faith. Who believes everything we do, including marriage for life, pro-life issues, redemptive suffering, and his knowledge of the faith is better than most Catholics. :o And yet, he still says it’s not for him. :confused: He doesn’t like the church hierarchy/authority, doesn’t believe in the Real Presence, confession of sins to a priest (yet he encourages me in it! 🤷), and still struggles with Mary and the Saints. So, yeah, all the basics, but like I said, he’s a more devout “Catholic” than many “catholics”. It just leaves me :whacky:
 
You keep praying and don’t push.

When I stopped pushing (sweetly most times!), and turned it over to God, within a year he was in RCIA. A good friend of mine waited 20 years for her husband to convert.
 
BillP said:
Seriously? Your husband does all this and you’re STILL here trying to get MORE?

Wow!
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I’m greedy for converts to the faith I love so dearly, and for the conversion of those souls I love so dearly all the more so. 😃

Edit to add: I DO realize I am super blessed. I have a much healthier and stronger mixed marriage situation than most. Please don’t think I don’t realize this. It’s just because I love my faith and husband so very much, I want nothing more than to give the greatest gift I possibly could to him: The Catholic Faith and Jesus in the Eucharist! 🙂
 
prolifewife said:
I’m greedy for converts to the faith I love so dearly, and for the conversion of those souls I love so dearly all the more so. 😃

Edit to add: I DO realize I am super blessed. I have a much healthier and stronger mixed marriage situation than most. Please don’t think I don’t realize this. It’s just because I love my faith and husband so very much, I want nothing more than to give the greatest gift I possibly could to him: The Catholic Faith and Jesus in the Eucharist! 🙂
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You have a similar problem as a friend of mine does! (She’s the one who’s trying to get her husband to go to the men’s conference along with mine) He’s like, halfway there, so to speak. He has ‘problems’ with Mary. He even STILL calls her an ‘incubator’!!! He says that TO HIS WIFE WHO HAS BORE HIS CHILDREN! She’s like ‘What would YOU do if someone said I was nothing more than an incubator?’ He said ‘I’d WANT to smack them!’ and she said ‘Now, pretend I’m Mary, and instead of YOU for a spouse, it’s the Holy Spirit. YOU would smack a person, what do you think the Holy Spirit will do to YOU?’
And still, Mary remains an incubator.
I have no advice for you prolife wife, I woudln’t even know where to begin, I just wanted to let you know that there are other women who are praying for their husbands in the same way, too.
 
My advice to the OP would be similar to others mentioned here: don’t push it, pray hard, be a good example of someone who lives their faith, bring things up in conversation but without evangelising. I think that very often it takes time for people to open up to God and good example is needed. Just put everything in God’s hands and trust Him.

Had no idea there are so many people in mixed marriages on the forum. I’ve always felf very self conscious about my own situation (DH is a non practicing Protestant, used to claim he was agnostic, but now is going through some kind of growing in faith process although he doesn’t talk about it).
I guess we should all keep praying for our beloved spouses to journey in faith and offer them good example with God’s help.
 
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