My husband is an angry atheist; I'm a revert living a double life

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Jessie

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I wonder if people could guide me or offer suggestions or insights.

I’m a cradle catholic. Felt called to vocation as a religious at a young age (10 ish), not well received by mum. Went off trails as teen, still felt called, but felt this was impossible due to promiscuity, drink, bad lifestyle etc. Left church for few years. As young adult, came back to the church. But was once a week, although always wanted more, (did alpha) married (in church) my then-agnostic husband. Moved to Switzerland and Germany which for me, spiritually disasterous. Persevered going to Mass every Sunday with the kids, but that’s all. More and more craving God and spiritual nurturing, searched desperately and last year, finally found the most amazing parish. (FSSP) I see a priest there every other week for spiritual direction. I was assisting at Holy Mass almost daily. Absolutely love assisting at nad. These last 6 weeks have been a huge cross.

But, my husband, over the years became increasingly angry with His, the church, me for going to church. The scandals haven’t helped. I took the kids to church but he wasn’t happy about it. He allowed them to be baptised. But even turned up half way through for the 4th child. Any time religion/God/the church is mentioned he gets angry. He hates me reading religious books, and so I don’t in front of him, because it will just be another argument or sarcastic, noting comment. Any mention of the church makes him angrier. So, without planning or intending, on reflection I find
 
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Sorry, got cut off

Sorry to be so long…
So, without planning it, I find I am living a double life. He knew I was searching for a different church. He knows I found a different church. He loathes my new church. Any mention of latin brings a scathing comment, scorn and ridicule. He cannot understand why I would want to attend Mass more than just on Sundays, so I would go en route to my job or shopping, just as part of my daily life and not mention it (he’s at work mostly so unaware and unaffected). I didn’t mention I was meeting the priest, because he would have freaked.

My priest (brave man) recently offered to speak with him. And I got thinking - my husband doesn’t even know I have spoken to a priest, yet I meet with him a couple of times a month. I have to read my bible in secret. Take the dog for long walks so I can pray undisturbed.

Any mention of God makes him angry, so I hide everything. He thinks all I do, read, think about it God, and it makes him hate the church more, and causes so much tension in our marriage. So now I hide everything. And I suddenly realise I am living a secret double life and it’s so hard and painful and I’m not sure how to go forward. Is this just my cross that I stupidly chose for myself, and I need to just get on with it?
 
When two people don’t agree and they live together they should learn to grow in respect for each other. That is I respect you and you respect me. It could be that there is more to this than meets the eye. Does you husband disrespect you in other ways?
 
It’s your marriage; it has fallen into neglect.

If it wasn’t God and the church it would be something else. How you look, family, friends, housekeeping, job or even what you eat and drink.

The Church is just the primary way he shows his disrespect.

Getting it back into balance is what need to learn, not new ways of hiding.
 
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I am a Reformed pastor who wants to cross the Tiber and this resonates so much with my own life right now. I do much the same, because I can’t live with my husband (and love him) in constant conflict.

In his case, I think he is struggling so much with it because he feels I’m a different person from the one he married, and with different life projects than those I had in the beginning. Even if part of it is, I think, an unavoidable consequence of being alive, he sees it on the whole as betraying what we were both imagining for our common life when we got married.

There is much I don’t tell him because I’m tired of arguing. I try, for now, to focus on rediscovering our bond in other aspects of our lives, with the hope that, in time, it will help making it easier for him, and will make us stronger as a couple. I don’t really know what else to do.
 
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Thank you. I’m not sure this is the case. In other ways he is loving and supportive. But it’s similar Oddbird’s situation I guess. He could tolerate me being a ‘Sundays only’ catholic. He has grown in hatred of the church. And I guess I would describe it almost as having fallen in love, deeply in love, and with his biggest enemy. and he massively resents it.
 
I’m not sure. In some ways yes. But also he is loving and generous (totally relaxed about my work, very supportive of my a-bit-complicated health situation)

But he is generally gruff, grumpy, bad tempered, angry, and over the years I’ve in other situations, ie kids being fussy eaters, really tip-toed around his bad temper (grew up with angry bully step dad) and avoided it. it scares me and wears me down. he would be astonished if I told him I was scared of his temper, I have told his. He was astonished. But I am. And this really makes him angry, or rude and sarcastic and causes such a strain I instinctively hid it, and sort of suddenly find I’m leading a double life.
 
Atheist here. (Actually I don’t call myself that but that is what people call me on CAF). I am fortunate (though I guess CAFers would disagree) to me married to someone who shares my absence of belief. I do come across atheists who cannot stand the thought of religion. Often they associate it with vile acts committed by religious people, and sometimes against them. For example, a child may have been abused or lived in terror having been told their parent was going to hell.

There is a however another trend in atheists which sees religion as an inevitable consequence of the way we evolved. In other words, in non-scientific terminology, ‘there’s a gene for it’. Humans developed consciousness and intelligence of a sort that provided advantages. With those things we could have more offspring who survived themselves to have offspring. But with it came fear - we still reacted instinctively around wolves, but also feared them in the night. This was a disadvantage. So too was the fear of injury and death. We needed people who would take risks. And so was our tendency to make up our own minds. If everyone did a different thing evolutionarily advantageous things like migration could not happen effectively. And so those of us with a tendency to believe in forces beyond us that could protect us from harm and those who followed strong leaders survived better, we happier, and had more offspring who survived.

This is of course hypothesis only but to me it provides a good explanation of why all societies have religion and why even those who do not believe in spiritual things tend to act in similar ways around their (non) beliefs. Just join an atheist online forum and you will see what I mean! It’s like CAF but without the charity.

Anyway I doubt this could be of help. But I point it out as a way of illustrating how common ground can be developed between believers and non-believers. There is no reason why a believer could not entertain the idea of this evolutionary process. It does not make belief wrong. I also think that non-religious analysis of scripture such as that done by Bart Ehrman challenges both belief and non-belief. Many atheists reject scripture as simply ‘wrong’. But there are important lessons for human society in how it cam etc be written, and why. The same is true of religious traditions. Some I reject entirely like the idea that there is something called ‘natural law’ but things drawn from it, like the Church teaching about respect for others reputation is more developed than anything in secular literature than I have found. The practice of forgiveness should also be of great interest to non-believers.

Good luck with it all - look for common ground!
 
Jessie said:
he would be astonished if I told him I was scared of his temper,
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Your marriage is out of balance.

You must challenge him and his behavior.

Stop making excuses for him.
 
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If this were addressed to me, that kind of advice would lead us straight to divorce.

ETA: I think part of what happens, with my husband at least, he’s that he’s terrified. Will I still be the woman he fell in love with ? Will I still be willing to be a pastor’s wife even if I become Catholic (he’s a pastor too) ? Above all, as our wedding ceremony was invalid, will I still want to be committed to a marriage which could be annulled in a heartbeat if I wanted out ? He needs reassuring, not challenging.
 
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I suspect he’d say yes. But there’s the problem, I don’t just want to go to church on Sundays. I want to go every day. I want to assist at Mass, attend talks, go on retreat (this isn’t new - I went on a retreat both before and just after our marriage), read the bible, read books. I long to do these things.

And he resents me doing any of this. Now it’s like an itch, an irritation he’s become aware of, so now an obsession almost, so everything I do catches his attention and makes him angry. He thinks it’s all imbalanced and wrong. He cannot comprehend anyone wanting to go to church (at all) more than once a week. So everything I do now re-inforces his obsession and frustration, which makes me hide even more, eg I couldn’t now order a ‘God book’ off Amazon, because he’d see, and away, I couldn’t read it in front of him. So reading is hard, as I rarely have the opportunity.
 
If going to mass daily does not interfere with your married life directly I don’t see what his problem with it is? I mean there could be a lot of other worse things you could be doing in your supposed ‘spare time’…
 
It doesn’t. None of it does. Which is why I’ve been going to daily mass, meeting the priest etc all without needing to tell him. Just like I don’t tell him when I go to the supermarket or the post office. It’s not that I’ve needed to hide it per se, I’ve just been able to do it all during my day without having to excuse myself. And because religion makes him angry I’ve not mentioned it. But now it’s a year down the line and I have a double life…

And now because of his resistance I’m hiding books etc. It feels like an affair. But it’s with God and the church. And I don’t see how to get out of this situation. It’s exhaustion and I’m permanently scared of letting something slip. I’m not built for subterfuge.
 
I never met a atheist that was unreasonable. I’m sure they’re out there, just never bumped into one.

He’s most likely trapped in a bad habit.

Challenge it and him. Not doing so and fear is the fast track to divorce.
 
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Dear @Jessie I live in a somehow similar situation. I am not sure what is the best thing to do but it is very hard not to share such an important part of our lives with our spouses. I guess this is the ‘unevenly joked’ described in the Bible; when I got married I wasn’t that religious but people change. I try to show love to my husband everyday, I very rarely talk about religion with him or his family because I know it will be just an eye rolling or a never ending discussion about the recent scandals. What I try to do is just to make him understand that going to Church makes me a better wife and mom; I am also trying to introduce him to some of my ‘church friends’ that are not pushy and that appeal to him from a human standpoint (working in the same field etc). I made a point to baptize our child, go to Mass every Sunday (before there was always an excuse to jeopardize my attendance) and possibly Confession once a month. I keep other practices and devotions private (like ‘sneaking in’ at daily Mass, praying the Rosary or attending an occasional short retreat or online lecture) and subjected to the circumstances (availability, schedule etc). It is not ideal but, as once a priest told me, we need to keep the family together and pick carefully our battles (in other words don’t give up in what is necessary and requested by the Church; be flexible about the rest). May God bless you and your family, you are in my prayers.
 
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It doesn’t sound like he’s expressing himself in a very helpful or respectful way? I guess it’s hard to understand his point of view but if my spouse got into Scientology or Wicca or something and was going every day I would not be happy with that, so maybe that’s how he feels?

Maybe suggest a therapist to help him with the anger and let him express his concerns in a constructive way.
 
Good for you. I think a lot depends on the level of closeness. Many people maintain a facade of tolerance when in social settings that disappears in other circumstances. For example I doubt an atheist will call out his/her pious boss or somebody s/he is dating about ‘believing in fairy tales’ or being ‘such a bigot’. With a spouse (family member, best friend etc) the tolerance is lower and freedom to express true feelings and opinions is higher.
 
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Jessie said:
Any mention of God makes him angry, so I hide everything. He thinks all I do, read, think about it God, and it makes him hate the church more, and causes so much tension in our marriage. So now I hide everything. And I suddenly realise I am living a secret double life and it’s so hard and painful and I’m not sure how to go forward. Is this just my cross that I stupidly chose for myself, and I need to just get on with it?
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I am sorry to hear about your very difficult situation.

My cousin—a devout Catholic—fell in love with and married a Buddhist (essentially an Atheist). It was very difficult for her raising her children Catholic while enduring constant resistance from her husband. Talking to him about the Catholic faith was impossible. His mind had already made up. So, she decided to live out her catholic faith and set good examples for her children and her husband. In time, her husband saw her sincerity and her faithfulness to Christ and the Church. His resistance softened to the point of having respect for her faith. He passed away a few years ago. Although he never converted, his attitude toward her in the end was markedly positive.

I wish you well. If you have a chance or have yet done so, St. Monica (mother of St. Augustine) would be a good source for comfort. And may God bless you.
 
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Who is the ‘good for you’ directed at? I didn’t understand it.

Thank you all for sharing your experiences and wishing me well. I understand that it is difficult for him, which is why I have tried so hard to not ‘rub his nose in it’. But a. It has gone so far that I have ended up leading a double life. B. I always have been catholic, so it’s not like I’ve started a weird new thing that is abhorrent to him. Being Catholic has always been part of me and important to me, even if I’ve been bad at it.

I’ve failed miserably at getting the balance between being discreet and being secretive. I haven’t deliberately misled him, or not intended to, but he is so aggressive and / or passive aggressive that i feel forced underground. If I say I’m going to church he will make a cutting comment that really hurts and niggles away at me, yet he’s forgotten about it or acts like nothing’s happened. Or I’ll just get ‘the look’ or a frosty się when i return. Now because of corona, I haven’t been able to go for 6 weeks. It’s been so painful. Now things are starting up again, and he doesn’t want me to go because it’s still an infection risk and I have to consider him and the family. It’s not just about me.

Finally, how to i drop the priest, and our meetings into the conversation? By the way darling, I’ve been going for spiritual direction for a year, didn’t I mention it? Or do I carry on keeping it secret. It’s all so hard.

Thank you all for being there!
 
“I am fortunate (though I guess CAFers would disagree) to me married to someone who shares my absence of belief” – my friend, you have “belief” and “faith”. Your god is science which ultimately requires a leap of faith also, don’t kid yourself. You also believe and have faith that there is, ABSOLUTELY, no God. Unless you are agnostic.

Also the whole “religion theory gene” is a joke. What is it trying to say? That if we have a gene for religion, that means it’s all made up? q.e.d? how so? quite a “leap of faith” wouldn’t you say? And is there any proof of it? How would one go about proving something like that?
 
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