The only Catholic in my family

[texasag7599]

About five years ago I converted. I was Baptist before and converted and my wife is still Baptist. She also doesn’t want the kids raised Catholic and I can’t exactly force that issue without disrupting our home life. I also live a long way from any parish so it’s quite a drive to just get to Mass.

Nobody goes to Mass with me. I go early by myself and come home and go with them to the Baptist church so we can be together on Sunday.

I really had no idea how lonely this path would be. I see other families together and involved at their parish and there is nothing there for me unless I want to just leave my family for the day to go do things by myself at a church function. I think that this has led me to be very uncaring in my faith and feel like there is no one listening to my prayers. I feel completely alone in this.

This isn’t the worst problem in the world, I know, but I guess I just need to know that there are others out there in this situation and see if there are some ways to make this work.

 

[YADA]

About five years ago I converted. I was Baptist before and converted and my wife is still Baptist. She also doesn’t want the kids raised Catholic and I can’t exactly force that issue without disrupting our home life. I also live a long way from any parish so it’s quite a drive to just get to Mass.

Nobody goes to Mass with me. I go early by myself and come home and go with them to the Baptist church so we can be together on Sunday.

I really had no idea how lonely this path would be. I see other families together and involved at their parish and there is nothing there for me unless I want to just leave my family for the day to go do things by myself at a church function. I think that this has led me to be very uncaring in my faith and feel like there is no one listening to my prayers. I feel completely alone in this.

This isn’t the worst problem in the world, I know, but I guess I just need to know that there are others out there in this situation and see if there are some ways to make this work.

I feel for you … I am from a very anti-Catholic family myself … though gradually [including two of my adult children are now catholic - praise God]

How is your married life? Do you and your wife communicate well? I ask this because your posts indicates that you have respect for your wife and work to support her in her faith - yet she does nothing to support you in yours … Respect is a two way street

How long were you married before you converted? Were both of you religiously active before your conversion? What are the ages of the children? Were they born before your conversion?

You and your wife should discuss and understand each others faith traditions and those areas that we share in common - emphasize those areas and live them so that your children know that they are Christian - Baptist and Catholic …

You should also live your live at home as a Catholic - you should teach your children about your faith - just as your wife should hers … Also - your wife and children should join you in parish activities as you should join them in her church … and it is appropriate that your Children join you at Mass on occasion - even every week … this does not ‘make them Catholic’ but it does provide them a chance to know their father and his spirituality - a very good thing for children to have … and what a blessing a father is - who would attend Mass and also join his family at church in another faith tradition …

You wife does not understand what a blessing she has in you

 

[tawny]

Praying to the Holy Spirit to give guidance & direction to your family.

 

[texasag7599]

I feel for you … I am from a very anti-Catholic family myself … though gradually [including two of my adult children are now catholic - praise God]

How is your married life? Do you and your wife communicate well? I ask this because your posts indicates that you have respect for your wife and work to support her in her faith - yet she does nothing to support you in yours … Respect is a two way street

How long were you married before you converted? Were both of you religiously active before your conversion? What are the ages of the children? Were they born before your conversion?

You and your wife should discuss and understand each others faith traditions and those areas that we share in common - emphasize those areas and live them so that your children know that they are Christian - Baptist and Catholic …

You should also live your live at home as a Catholic - you should teach your children about your faith - just as your wife should hers … Also - your wife and children should join you in parish activities as you should join them in her church … and it is appropriate that your Children join you at Mass on occasion - even every week … this does not ‘make them Catholic’ but it does provide them a chance to know their father and his spirituality - a very good thing for children to have … and what a blessing a father is - who would attend Mass and also join his family at church in another faith tradition …

You wife does not understand what a blessing she has in you

My wife made it very clear at one point that she was working through some issues about my conversion. Which, to her credit, is to be expected. When I converted our oldest daughter was a year old and we weren’t attending church. I think my conversion forced her to start going back to church because she realized that she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to the children if she sat at home on Sunday.

We now have two children and another to be born later this month. The oldest used to go with me to church every now and then and she told me that she likes it. My wife stopped going again for a little while a few months ago and I told her that I was going to start taking the kids with me very week if she wasn’t going to go anymore. This prompted her to start going again.

The bad thing is that it’s very hard to talk to her about this situation because she gets mad and defensive. So we just don’t talk about it. Really we don’t have many deep conversations at all because she gets uncomfortable and doesn’t know what to say and she clams up.

It really seems like I have made an active choice to take the hardest path here and that I further isolate myself at every opportunity.

To her credit, she’s ok with Catholic things around the house and she doesn’t mind me and the kids having our own bedtime prayers. She is supportive of me being what I want to be but not to the point of going out of her way.

 

[Used2beSherryG]

Welcome to the family of the Catholic Church. It sounds like you are doing very well with your approach. continue to ask your wife for her support and attendance with you at Mass and continue to take the children as well. You need to attend as often as possible, receiving the sacraments of Reconciliation and communion, sharing your prayers and faith at home, work, socially, etc. If you are steadfast in your faith, it will be transmitted to the rest of your family. Things like this can take a long time. Enjoy as much socially at your parish and invite your wife to participate. In these instances she can meet people of faith in a relaxed and social setting. I will pray for you. I am in a similar situation with my husband, and he is learning over time how much my faith means to me and how great all my Catholic friends are, too.

 

[Jon_S_1]

About five years ago I converted. I was Baptist before and converted and my wife is still Baptist. She also doesn’t want the kids raised Catholic and I can’t exactly force that issue without disrupting our home life. I also live a long way from any parish so it’s quite a drive to just get to Mass.

Nobody goes to Mass with me. I go early by myself and come home and go with them to the Baptist church so we can be together on Sunday.

I really had no idea how lonely this path would be. I see other families together and involved at their parish and there is nothing there for me unless I want to just leave my family for the day to go do things by myself at a church function. I think that this has led me to be very uncaring in my faith and feel like there is no one listening to my prayers. I feel completely alone in this.

This isn’t the worst problem in the world, I know, but I guess I just need to know that there are others out there in this situation and see if there are some ways to make this work.

Wouldn’t it be lovely if your wife would go with you to mass, have you asked her? Maybe you can take the kids with you and expose them to both your faiths.

Praying for you, I am divorced, my ex is baptist, I can’t get the kids their sacraments without her consent so I feel your pain, but I invited her to mass so she could see it and she doesn’t mind me taking the kids anymore.

I think you could share your heart with your wife and see if even just once a month the kids or the kids and her join you.

 

[Jon_S_1]

My wife made it very clear at one point that she was working through some issues about my conversion. Which, to her credit, is to be expected. When I converted our oldest daughter was a year old and we weren’t attending church. I think my conversion forced her to start going back to church because she realized that she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on when it came to the children if she sat at home on Sunday.

We now have two children and another to be born later this month. The oldest used to go with me to church every now and then and she told me that she likes it. My wife stopped going again for a little while a few months ago and I told her that I was going to start taking the kids with me very week if she wasn’t going to go anymore. This prompted her to start going again.

The bad thing is that it’s very hard to talk to her about this situation because she gets mad and defensive. So we just don’t talk about it. Really we don’t have many deep conversations at all because she gets uncomfortable and doesn’t know what to say and she clams up.

It really seems like I have made an active choice to take the hardest path here and that I further isolate myself at every opportunity.

To her credit, she’s ok with Catholic things around the house and she doesn’t mind me and the kids having our own bedtime prayers. She is supportive of me being what I want to be but not to the point of going out of her way.

Keep doing what your doing, remember hard roads create Saints. God Bless.

 

[boomerang]

 

[ClearWater]

About five years ago I converted. I was Baptist before and converted and my wife is still Baptist. She also doesn’t want the kids raised Catholic and I can’t exactly force that issue without disrupting our home life. I also live a long way from any parish so it’s quite a drive to just get to Mass.

Nobody goes to Mass with me. I go early by myself and come home and go with them to the Baptist church so we can be together on Sunday.

I really had no idea how lonely this path would be. I see other families together and involved at their parish and there is nothing there for me unless I want to just leave my family for the day to go do things by myself at a church function. I think that this has led me to be very uncaring in my faith and feel like there is no one listening to my prayers. I feel completely alone in this.

This isn’t the worst problem in the world, I know, but I guess I just need to know that there are others out there in this situation and see if there are some ways to make this work.

I think if I were ever in a situation (though I can’t say with 100% certainty, since I’ve never had anything quite like that) would be to focus on myself and get myself to church on Sundays and practice my faith.

If my spouse didn’t fulfill his obligations in raising the kids in a faith, I would have probably tried to do as you have, offer to pick up the “slack”.

I don’t think anything positive will come from making religion an area of contention.

I’d say to focus on what you have in common rather than your differences.

One way to express what you have in common, with young kids, say, is to find a children’s Bible you both agree with, and you could both read that together (as a family). Children’s Bibles often don’t really get into denominations.

When you come to think of it, you really have more in common than not, though often we don’t think of it that way. You both believe in God, in Christ.

Acceptance would probably be key, and respect…to accept and respect each other’s beliefs.

Recall in the story about the “Good Samaritan”, that Christ said that despite the fact this person wasn’t even Jewish, he was actually doing God’s will. In fact, in that story, the Good Samaritan actually did God’s will BETTER than the Jews in it!

So, maybe approaching this from a way similar to Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa used to encourage Muslims to become better Muslims…etc. She encouraged each faith to become the best at it, possible.

That way, there really wasn’t an argument. With that kind of philosophy, she was able to work with all kinds of faiths. When she died, many other faiths also honored her memory.

If you want to see how this works in practice terms, in action, there’s a movie on Mother Teresa…

amazon.com/Mother-Teresa-Olivia-Hussey/dp/B000EXDS52

Your local library may even have it.

I would encourage you, insofar as you possibly can, to try hard to avoid arguments over religion, to imitate Mother Teresa.

If it would cause your family to absolutely implode to encourage them to go to a Catholic Church, then don’t. Encourage them to go to the Baptist Church…all of them.
You, if you believe in the Catholic Church, then go to yours and if you find you may need more support, strive to seek out other friends to go with. Would you consider seeking support within your Church, so that you aren’t alone in this?

I found some degree of support by joining a daily rosary prayer group.

 

[ClearWater]

Would you consider looking at all that’s available in your local Catholic church(es), and find some other activities, classes, and ways to find the support you are lacking in your family?

You must feel like a salmon swimming upstream as the lone Catholic in your family! God bless you! So, my :twocents: would be for you to find support with other like minded folks…other Catholics. Ideally, we should be able to find this within our marriages and families, but if not, one has to do what one has to do. If you have to go outside your marriage, and family, to find the support you so desperately need, then I’d encourage you to do that.

 

[sscott]

When you converted you changed all the rules of your marriage. Your wife should be upset. She married a Baptist who didn’t practice that much but expected that her children would be raised Baptist. You are the one who betrayed the original vows by converting. Now you are whining that nobody will “play with you” by going to mass. Didn’t you notice that your wife was angry during the time you were going to RCIA? She has every right to expect her children not to be raised Catholic. I am really surprised all this didn’t lead to a divorce before your had children. You should have thought about this before you converted.
There will be a lot of angry comments about this because this is a Catholic web site and people will suggest you try to convert everyone. If your wife was the one who converted to another religion you wouldn’t be very happy either. Consider her point of view.

 

[ClearWater]

When you converted you changed all the rules of your marriage. Your wife should be upset. She married a Baptist who didn’t practice that much but expected that her children would be raised Baptist. You are the one who betrayed the original vows by converting. Now you are whining that nobody will “play with you” by going to mass. Didn’t you notice that your wife was angry during the time you were going to RCIA? She has every right to expect her children not to be raised Catholic. I am really surprised all this didn’t lead to a divorce before your had children. You should have thought about this before you converted.
There will be a lot of angry comments about this because this is a Catholic web site and people will suggest you try to convert everyone. If your wife was the one who converted to another religion you wouldn’t be very happy either. Consider her point of view.

In my opinion, nobody has “betrayed” the other.

I’ve heard it said that women often go into marriage thinking, “I can change him” and that men go into marriage thinking, “she will always stay the same”!

I got married years ago when I had fallen away from my faith, and later I found it. Some also said it was all my “fault” I had found my faith again! Some said it was my job to never, ever, …ever change. I was supposed to remain always the same.

However, within about 2 months of my marriage or so, my husband, who was working at a nice job at the university, suddenly decided to do an early retirement and become a projectionist, working for minimum wage, no benefits. Now, although that wasn’t my preference, I accepted it, because that was part of what it means to be married, trying to accept the person, even when change happens…which it will.

To think people will never change is, to me, unrealistic. We hope one will stay in the same faith. It often makes it easier, but in marriage, by its nature, there just aren’t any guarantees. To think there is, is to not understand the nature of marriage. If we want guarantees, we need something else…not marriage.

However, the marriage vows say “for better or worse…richer or poorer…sickness or health…to death do us part”. Nowhere in the vows does it say, “…and I promise to be a faithful…Baptist…Catholic”, etc.!

At times, we also have to sometimes change in order to grow.

We believe what we believe, and our beliefs will often, over decades, typically have highs and lows. A married person may…become stronger in his faith…weaker…go back and forth…change a faith. That’s just how it is.

So it is not breaking any vows even changing one’s faith.

If there is love, though, even this is not insurmountable. Christ told us that love endures all things.

 

[ClearWater]

An example of breaking the marriage vow would be, say, infidelity, since the vow said, “…forsaking all others”.

Changing religions is in no way breaking the vow.

 

[ClearWater]

When you converted you changed all the rules of your marriage. Your wife should be upset. She married a Baptist who didn’t practice that much but expected that her children would be raised Baptist. You are the one who betrayed the original vows by converting. Now you are whining that nobody will “play with you” by going to mass. Didn’t you notice that your wife was angry during the time you were going to RCIA? She has every right to expect her children not to be raised Catholic.** I am really surprised all this didn’t lead to a divorce before your had children. **B]**You should have thought about this before you converted. **

There will be a lot of angry comments about this because this is a Catholic web site and people will suggest you try to convert everyone. If your wife was the one who converted to another religion you wouldn’t be very happy either. Consider her point of view.

Please be nice.

 

[ClearWater]

When you converted you changed all the rules of your marriage. Your wife should be upset. She married a Baptist who didn’t practice that much but expected that her children would be raised Baptist. You are the one who betrayed the original vows by converting. Now you are whining that nobody will “play with you” by going to mass. Didn’t you notice that your wife was angry during the time you were going to RCIA? She has every right to expect her children not to be raised Catholic. I am really surprised all this didn’t lead to a divorce before your had children. You should have thought about this before you converted.
**There will be a lot of angry comments about this because this is a Catholic web site and people will suggest you try to convert everyone. **If your wife was the one who converted to another religion you wouldn’t be very happy either. Consider her point of view.

I am not angry, and I didn’t suggest he try to convert anyone to Catholicism.

 

[Jon_S_1]

When you converted you changed all the rules of your marriage. Your wife should be upset. She married a Baptist who didn’t practice that much but expected that her children would be raised Baptist. You are the one who betrayed the original vows by converting. Now you are whining that nobody will “play with you” by going to mass. Didn’t you notice that your wife was angry during the time you were going to RCIA? She has every right to expect her children not to be raised Catholic. I am really surprised all this didn’t lead to a divorce before your had children. You should have thought about this before you converted.
There will be a lot of angry comments about this because this is a Catholic web site and people will suggest you try to convert everyone. If your wife was the one who converted to another religion you wouldn’t be very happy either. Consider her point of view.

What a horrific marriage you describe one should have.

Life changes, people change, either you are committed to your spouse or not.

I can’t imagine you would offer the same scathing remarks to a baptist in your church that was upset their atheist wife would not go to church with him.

 

[ClearWater]

This is a Catholic forum and exactly the right place to come to voice concerns and seek support.

In the ideal, we try to be supportive and understanding, empathic. Even if we can’t come up with a solution, we try to allow the person the opportunity to talk out problems, be a “shoulder to cry on”, caring, compassionate.

In the ideal, we try to have people leave feel they were at least heard, understood, and cared about, supported, affirmed.

It’s hard being different in groups…almost doesn’t matter what it’s in. Groups, by their nature, thrive on similarities, will often reject and exclude members who are different…be it a black person in a white area…or a person of a different faith…

 

[Musician]

I am the only Catholic in my whole family. Now I am also estranged from many of my Holiness friends/family that I was raised with. My husband finally converted in 2006 (we had been attending the Episcopal Church). It is a real comfort to have him in the faith now. I feel you. It is a very rough path to take and it seems that no one understands.
I just keep going to Mass and practicing my faith quietly. I can do nothing else and be right before the Lord.

 

[ClearWater]

I am the only Catholic in my whole family. Now I am also estranged from many of my Holiness friends/family that I was raised with. My husband finally converted in 2006 (we had been attending the Episcopal Church). It is a real comfort to have him in the faith now. I feel you. It is a very rough path to take and it seems that no one understands.
I just keep going to Mass and practicing my faith quietly. I can do nothing else and be right before the Lord.

Wow! It SOUNDS difficult and lonely, but I’m glad it had a happy ending!

 

[MyLittlPwn13]

About five years ago I converted. I was Baptist before and converted and my wife is still Baptist. She also doesn’t want the kids raised Catholic and I can’t exactly force that issue without disrupting our home life. I also live a long way from any parish so it’s quite a drive to just get to Mass.

Nobody goes to Mass with me. I go early by myself and come home and go with them to the Baptist church so we can be together on Sunday.

I really had no idea how lonely this path would be. I see other families together and involved at their parish and there is nothing there for me unless I want to just leave my family for the day to go do things by myself at a church function. I think that this has led me to be very uncaring in my faith and feel like there is no one listening to my prayers. I feel completely alone in this.

This isn’t the worst problem in the world, I know, but I guess I just need to know that there are others out there in this situation and see if there are some ways to make this work.

I feel your pain. I was a convert from a Mormon family. The priest and I were the only Catholics in the room when I got married. My husband was a Tibetan Buddhist when we met, but has since become simply an atheist. I’m grateful that he was a good sport and went through marriage preparation with me (we wouldn’t be married if he hadn’t) and even sat in on a few RCIA sessions.He’s no closer to being Catholic, of course, and I still get some friendly ribbing, but he’s supportive when it counts. I make an effort to be supportive of him as well and find common ground.

It would be appropriate for your wife to allow the kids to go with you occasionally, even if she doesn’t want to go. If she really will not, I would suggest counseling. I think it’s likely that she feels threatened and she may be afraid that the kids will be told rotten things about Baptists while they’re at church. (By the way, you should make sure that doesn’t happen and assure her that you’ll do so.)

As far as going to Mass and church activities, I find it helpful to make friends at church to have someone to go with. See if the parish has a men’s group–you’re probably not the only one with this challenge.