I’m going through that with my husband as well. He’s incredulous at my reversal on my own position as a minister, as well as on homosexuality (contraception is less of an issue). He actually thinks I’m converting because I’m insecure in my identity as a woman, and he doesn’t seem to understand what I say when I tell him that giving up ordained ministry is not what I want, but that I’m called strongly enough to the Church to accept it as a consequence.
I don’t know what to say either. I said much the same as you, that I couldn’t yet give complete intellectual assent but was ready to accept and obey. To him, it’s particularly difficult to understand that anyone with intellectual faculties could say that, and choose to submit one’s own reasoning to somebody else’s teaching. I don’t really know how to proceed.
On the other hand, I’ve told my mother and a pastor friend who was in the same pastoral training class as me that I was on the way to converting. Both were completely supportive, my pastor friend actually exclaiming, “I totally understand !” That’s a first step which is making me think that maybe, just maybe, telling some of my friends could be easier than I anticipated.
