Touchy situation

[pattynicole]

I have been married 13 years to a Southern Baptist. We got married in a SBC church and participated fully in a church. and I mean fully!!! I always told people I was Catholic. My husband always told people I was Catholic. We left a church because of anti-catholicism. I always said God did not want me to break up my marriage over denominational differences (yes I understand Catholic is not a denomination, thank you).

One day I was challenged one too many times on Catholicism (challenged. Insulted. whatever). So I started doing reading to better defend the Faith of my family. And a funny thing happened. I actually began BEING Catholic. My husband of course did not like that at all. It was okay for me to SAY I was Catholic, just not BE Catholic.

He wanted us all to go to church together. It was not okay for him for me to be Catholic on my own. So we all went to Mass. He hated it. As much as I said, “Honey! Let me go early in the a.m. and we all go together to a Baptist church” he would have none of it. Last month things boiled over in my husbands soul and some very ugly things were said and done about Cahtolicism, me and everything else in his life. I thought we were through but he eventually calmed down, said a simple “I’m sorry for everything apology”. (Hardly enough for ALL that had been said and done, really!!) Slowly we got back to “normal”. We started looking for a Baptist church but after a few weeks he said, “why don’t we go to that Catholic church?” and I ignored him once, twice and three times. Finally last night I said to him, “We can’t go there together. It is killing you to go there. I need you to be somewhere you feel you can grow spiritually and be happy”. If the husband isn’t happy in our house then no one is happy.

He said he only cares about the children being happy (read:entertained). He does not care where we go because I think he no longer cares about his relationship with God. I’m not sure. And that because I care we can go Catholic. I said we don’t go Catholic. We BE Catholic. Baptism, communion, confession, the whole works. all the htings he rallied against inhis previous rant. He goes to RCIA. Not to convert but to learn what it is the kids will learn. He said fine, as long there are “activtities” for the kids and he can go to RCIA Sunday morning.

He used to put further restrictions on a church that he no longer does. Has to be within 5 miles, classes need to directly precede the Mass, no crying babies, no Judas Shuffle, songs he knows. It was impossible for him to fulfill.

I have learned that no matter where we go to church, no matter how clean the house is, how organized I am, how I do everything like he wants that he will not be happy. He will always have this “thing” going on that I cannot explain. So if we are going to be living this way shouldn’t we at least live it in a Catholic church? Or is it a trap? Or a tragedy of my marriage waiting to happen? Not that it hasn’t already happened and I’m just buying time hoping God will strike lightning and rough him up a bit.

Because I told him I can no longer “Lord’s Supper” with him and that I don’t agree with a lot of Baptist things he no longer wants me to go to Baptist church and pretend (even though he would be pretending in a Catholic church: And between us I am a much better “pretender”). I have told him I can be Catholic and be happy keeping the family together in a Baptist Church but he wants no part of it.

I’m thinking I am going to go full tilt Catholic. I would hate for him to be odd man out but I really don’t think I have any other options.

Advice?

 

[rpp]

Unfortunately, yours is not an uncommon situation. I myself went through somethings a little akin to what you are experiencing.

Both my wife and I were atheists when we married. In 2003, I experienced a sudden and miraculous conversion. But not my wife. Eventually she divorced me be3cause she could not tolerate Christianity or, especially, the Catholic Church. We had no children.

My hope is that your experience is not the same. Be a good Catholic witness of humility, gentleness and steadfastness. You and your husband love each other and, I presume, have mutual respect. Eventually, but slowly, he will come around. Have faith in God.

Pray that the Lord will give your husband the spirit of humility.

May God grant you peace.

 

[mark_a]

Advice?

Sounds to me like you are handling it just fine.

 

[surfinpure]

First of all, welcome to CAF, and welcome back to the Church! I am a re-vert, and my passion for the faith, I believe, is so much more dynamic now that I have been away and come back to the Truth.

Yours is an interesting situation. If you husband has no objection to attending RCIA, I can see absolutely no harm in his doing so. You are right that one cannot simply “go Catholic,” but rather has to make the journey of faith. This concept is often quite difficult for Protestants to grasp, because many of them are used to (as I once was) hopping from church to church and simply “signing up” as members. And most Protestant churches are more than happy to gain their congregation this way!

But you and I know that to be Catholic is a much deeper thing, and it requires a real conversion of the heart. It sounds as though your husband has experienced no such conversion, but is instead feeling the despair of the in-between state. It can be a very lonely place. He seems kind in his desire for you to worship where it is meaningful to you. The real reason he is no longer passionate about being Baptist may be that he is beginning to see some of the problems with Protestantism (and church-hopping is one of them!). So I would encourage you to be loving and patient with him. As 1 Peter 3 tells us,

Likewise, you wives should be subordinate to your husbands so that, even if some disobey the word, they may be won over without a word by their wives’ conduct when they observe your reverent and chaste behavior.

Pray that the Holy Spirit will open his eyes and speak to his heart. It would be wonderful for him to attend RCIA, if only at first to understand what you believe as a Catholic. There are many misunderstandings and outright deceptions being propagated by the non-Catholic world, and since he has been a Baptist all his life, he has likely been steeped in them. This will give him an opportunity to shed his previous notions of what the Church is, and discover her in her true beauty.

May our Blessed Mother and Sts. Monica and Rita be with you, sister.

In Christ,

Mary