Why is it so common for Catholic women to marry non-Catholic men?

[Xantippe]

I would definitely suggest cultivating friendship with women, but without the expectation that it will yield romantic fruit. I think cross-gender friendship can be very educational and enriching for young adults, but one needs to manage ones expectations.

 

[Burt_Macklin]

I can only speak for myself. The Catholic men that showed an interest in me were either so lukewarm they did not even take their Sunday obligation seriously or else, to be blunt, serious about their faith to the point of being controlling. I knew some very good Catholic men, they are out there, but we did happen to hit it off.

That is my experience dating Catholic women as well. The ones that were serious about their faith were serious to the point were I couldn’t see an R-rated movie or eat at a place called VooDoo BBQ. Like I said, it would be really tough being married to a saint.

 

[The_Bucket]

That is my experience dating Catholic women as well. The ones that were serious about their faith were serious to the point were I couldn’t see an R-rated movie or eat at a place called VooDoo BBQ. Like I said, it would be really tough being married to a saint.

There’s a really weird subculture out there for sure. I don’t get it.

 

[Lorelei12]

To start with the assumption that they married out of pure attraction or a disregard for their faith is uncharitable and insulting. It’s one thing to politely ask their perspective and experience, it’s another to ask them to defend their marriages to you.

Yes, OP, the way your question is worded is rather insulting.

My husband was baptized, presumably to please his grandparents, and then the only time he set foot in church before we started dating was either at a funeral or when he stayed with his grandmother. His parents believe in God, but feel that their upbringing was too rigid and that they “do not need to go to church to pray”. So my husband was raised with that attitude, and never taught about the faith.

This was a struggle for me as I discerned marriage with him, and we nearly broke up once over it. But after a lot of praying and reflecting, I realized that this really was the man I wanted to marry. He was different than anyone I had ever dated before, including Catholic men. He is, in many ways, a better Christian than I am. He has a kind heart, is always helping people, his humility brings me down a notch sometimes, and is a constant reminder to me of how we are all supposed to live our lives. I finally understood that this was the man who was going to help me get to heaven. And, though he has not received the rest of his sacraments (which I pray for but never push about) he does attend church with me often and will ask me all sorts of questions, many of which show me that, despite many years of Catholic schooling, I still have so much more to learn.

So, I assure you that the love I have for my husband is not “pure attraction” nor do I have a “lack of concern for my faith”. I did not base my decision to marry him on fleeting feelings, but rather on prayer and a genuine discernment of what God wanted of me. And now that we have been married a few years, I love him more every day and have never doubted my decision. I do not expect him to “change”, though I would be happy if he wanted to develop his faith further. Nor did I “settle” for him, as you suggest, because I couldn’t find a Catholic man. I would encourage you to refrain from assuming that Catholic women who choose a non-Catholic for a husband are weak in faith or delusional.

 

[Blessedwithfive]

I have been married for 24 years to a protetant and I have a very strong Catholic background. Very active in our church (teaching ccd for over 18 years, EMHC for years, help with childrens choir, bible camp, etc.)
We have five faithful children. (even the ones in college go to church, and they are not going to Catholic Colleges)

Calm down guys, they are Protestant, not the anti-Christ! We have lots of the same beliefs and he knew from the beginning the kids needed to be raised Catholic. We attend Mass together as a family each Sunday and he has defended the faith at every chance he gets! Now he is not Catholic mostly because it is too difficult for him to convert. He works out of town and many late nights so I can stay home with the children and simpy does not have time for RCIA classes.

Why I married him? I fell in love! You remember that, don’t you? LOVE!
And after all these years…I’m still madly in LOVE with him!

 

[Joe_5859]

Hmm, unique advice. All the advice I’ve gotten says to be friends with her first, I’ve even heard how “many women say they dream about falling in love with a friend”, but then I see that this never happens for some strange reason. That’s why I like this board, people are honest here.

Also that’s interesting how men would ask you out BlueEyedLady, don’t married people wear wedding rings on the left hand ring finger? I guess people don’t really care about that anymore

I know this is getting a bit off-topic, but my wife and I were friends before we started dating. We weren’t best friends, but we’d had more than our share of personal one-on-one conversations. There wasn’t much we didn’t know about each other before we started dating.

 

[Thorns]

Hmm, unique advice. All the advice I’ve gotten says to be friends with her first, I’ve even heard how “many women say they dream about falling in love with a friend”, but then I see that this never happens for some strange reason. That’s why I like this board, people are honest here.

Also that’s interesting how men would ask you out BlueEyedLady, don’t married people wear wedding rings on the left hand ring finger? I guess people don’t really care about that anymore

I think this is just more proof for what women say they want, isnt what they really want.

In all honesty, IMO, it osnt because Catholic men arent “on fire for their faith” that women dont notice them. On the contrary, I think Catholic men who are enthusiastic about their faith come off as boring and tame to most women. So they end up with the fun loving, spontaneous, ambitious, egotistical, daring secular guy who is everything that they truly want in a man. Not that Catholic men arent that, they just arent perceived as that.

I also think the other half of Catholic men who are on fire for their faith genuinely dont have any or enough experience with women.

 

[Angel_Bradford]

I’ve always wondered, as a convert not attuned to the modus vivendi of cradle catholicism, why it’s so common that Catholic women marry non-Catholic men. I even once heard Peter Kreeft make a joke about this when telling his conversion story. He said he went to see a priest about becoming Catholic, and the priest responded “It’s a girlfriend, isn’t it?”

I would have thought that religion would be something very important to a Catholic when choosing a spouse. Here’s why. When you enter into marriage you’re potentially taking part in the creation of souls destined for eternal bliss in heaven, but also threatened with eternal damnation in hell. Marrying a non-Catholic spouse I think we can all say objectively threatens any children born in this marriage and moves them away from God. Statistically speaking, if the father is not going to mass every Sunday, the children will not do so. As the Catholic church stands in the west, it is a rapidly dying joke among young people, and every marriage with a father not taking the children to mass pretty much ensures that these children will join the horde of lemmings running off the cliff. Finally, if you’re at all devout, I would imagine it would cause some distress to be “unequally yoked” (2 Cor 6:14).

So what reasons do these many Catholic women have for marrying non-Catholic spouses? Do the women think that they’ll change the men? Good luck with that. Do they think there’s not any Catholic men for them? I know that there’s not a lack of Catholic men out there, so I think the excuse of “I can’t find any Catholic men” is a little hollow.

The only reasons I can come up with are 1. pure attraction 2. lack of concern for their faith, preferring trying to find fulfillment in a spouse.

And that’s pretty much what it is right? Please correct me if you disagree. But in the face of all the down-sides I listed above to being unequally yoked, these Catholic women have their feelings, and maybe they throw in a blind hope that he’ll come around to the faith.

Discuss?

Sincerely,

another poorly influenced and poorly catechized catholic raised by a mother who chose a non-catholic husband

I live in Georgia where the Catholic population is only like 5% of the total population and, in the “South Georgia Missions” where I live, it’s much lower than that.

An elderly lady in the parish once told me that, when she was growing up here, there were no Catholic boys her age; so, it was either marry a non-Catholic or one of her brothers.

So, yeah, lack of Catholic men could be a plausible reason.

 

[Xantippe]

Burt Macklin said:

“Like I said, it would be really tough being married to a saint.”

Nut is more like it.

Can you imagine raising teenagers with somebody like that?

 

[MJJean]

I am a (converting) non-catholic who married a non-practicing catholic that reverted. So, I just took a best guess and my best guess was a lack of men.

I don’t know about your parishes, but in mine you’re hard pressed to find someone over 21 and under 50 let alone a single man in that range! I thought the younger folks were just going to different Mass times, but then I started varying Mass times and found that there just weren’t any. I’ve seen a few more younger men at Mass at other parishes during Holy Days, but not many. And the ones I did see looked like they were there because they were students visiting home and going to Mass was the only way to get their mothers to feed them and do their laundry or something!

I’ve thought about what I would do if I were to be widowed and I’d be in a real bind if I were trying to date only catholic men. Even being willing to date a man 10+ years my senior there would be very slim pickings.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

I can definitely speak to this one… Anecdote isn’t data, but I’ve attended Mass regularly at several parishes in different parts of the country since I returned to the Church several years ago and I never got any interest from the available women in any of those parishes. Unless they were much older than me and happened to be serving Communion with me in one of the parishes where I did that. So since those parishes were in very different parts of the country, I’m guessing it’s like that all over.

Must be something about seeing me on my knees before and during Mass that is turning off women I might be interested in. Whatever, it’s okay, that’s just how that is, I can’t change them so I’m not losing sleep speculating on their motivations. But I will say complaints about the lack of available male Catholics definitely fall on deaf ears here. While I know I’m ugly, I also know I’m not that ugly as I can get phone numbers and dates outside of the Church and I have not felt guilty about dating non-Catholic women in years.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

Also that’s interesting how men would ask you out BlueEyedLady, don’t married people wear wedding rings on the left hand ring finger? I guess people don’t really care about that anymore

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, and most of the guys who ask me out seem like good, decent men. I’m guessing it’s because so many unmarried women in their 20’s wear rings on their left hands (I sure as heck did! I make my own jewelry, so why waste a finger?), or they don’t notice mine, or it’s a day that I’m not wearing my ring. I work part time at a law firm in a very poor area, and the lawyers do a lot of pro bono work, so I would feel uncomfortable being a law student with a big rock while meeting clients. (My ring is actually not diamond, but it gets mistaken a lot).

I think another poster was right on about the exotic other.

 

[CountrySinger]

I live in Georgia where the Catholic population is only like 5% of the total population and, in the “South Georgia Missions” where I live, it’s much lower than that.

An elderly lady in the parish once told me that, when she was growing up here, there were no Catholic boys her age; so, it was either marry a non-Catholic or one of her brothers.

So, yeah, lack of Catholic men could be a plausible reason.

In my hometown in the Pacific Northwest, there were no eligible Catholic men that either weren’t teenagers or your father’s age. When I was in my twenties, I didn’t want to date a 17 or a 50 year old. Out of my Catholic friends, I was the only one to marry a Catholic. And I had to go to the UK to find him.*

*Technically, I met DH on CAF.

 

[Joe_5859]

I think what all the posts illustrate is that reasons will vary.

 

[Convert2013]

I have been married for 24 years to a protetant and I have a very strong Catholic background. Very active in our church (teaching ccd for over 18 years, EMHC for years, help with childrens choir, bible camp, etc.)
We have five faithful children. (even the ones in college go to church, and they are not going to Catholic Colleges)

Calm down guys, they are Protestant, not the anti-Christ! We have lots of the same beliefs and he knew from the beginning the kids needed to be raised Catholic. We attend Mass together as a family each Sunday and he has defended the faith at every chance he gets! Now he is not Catholic mostly because it is too difficult for him to convert. He works out of town and many late nights so I can stay home with the children and simpy does not have time for RCIA classes.

Why I married him? I fell in love! You remember that, don’t you? LOVE!
And after all these years…I’m still madly in LOVE with him!

To the OP:
First, who says its “common” and what does that mean? Is there a quantitative number that qualifies as common? Or is it just perception

I guess I would like to think in those situations that God puts Catholic Men & Women together with non-Catholics for a reason! At least that was the case in my situation. Thankfully my wife (and her family) didn’t think it wrong for her to date a non-Catholic Christian! We started dating in high school. We were friends first, then fell in love …seriously fell in love. That was over 22 years ago. I began to attend Mass with her within about a year. We were married about 6 years later in the Church. I continued to attend Mass with her ever since that first time and did so for over 20 years before attending RCIA last year.

Although my wife will say that I know more about the Catholic Church than she does (I study/ read everything), she IS more Catholic than I. I am learning what it is to be Catholic and how to live as a Catholic thanks to her. Thank God for Catholic women! I don’t know where I’d be today if not for her.

 

[65again]

well my moter marries a non catholic-- my 2 sisters’s marries a non catholic-- and i have found that most woman who are catholic do not know and are not taught how to hear the voice of the HolySpirit-- i had to go to a non catholic evangelic church to to find a woman who can hear the holy Spirit and be led by the holy Spirit–

but this is becasue there are men and woman who can teach – the belivers how to hear from the Holy spirit-- and it helps to have a “born again” experience – like saint paul did on the road to Dymancus–

or a “personal reliationship” with Jesus thru the Holy spirit-- meaning-- when you pray for an answer (james 1:4-6" ) ask 4 wisdom–

that these christians actuall can tell you what God told them-

• and it is more than yes-no-or not now–

and as a raised Catholic-- i found it frustrating – talking to my very religious catholic mother-- because – she didn’t understand how to hear from God–

and she was educated at a Catholic College-- with 2 sisters who were “nuns”

 

[mountee]

My non-Catholic husband and I have been married 42 years, raised 2 children Catholic and they have married and are raising their children Catholic. Up until your thread I will admit I never thought about why I married a non-Catholic. We met while I was going to a Catholic college and he was going to a state university in the same town. We just had a great time dating, shared a lot of similar interests and values and I never felt any issue about my faith with him. When we fell in love and decided to marry there was never a question of not marrying in the Church or raising any children Catholic, it was just understood and never questioned. Now at this point in my life I can not imagine my life any other way and I am still very Catholic and proud of it. I won’t deny I wish he was too but God had a plan for me and I think I am living it.

 

[The_Bucket]

Must be something about seeing me on my knees before and during Mass that is turning off women I might be interested in.

EL OH EL. Ok bro.

Whatever, it’s okay, that’s just how that is, I can’t change them so I’m not losing sleep speculating on their motivations.

Clearly it is not okay, given the passive aggressiveness in this post. I’m guessing that might have a lot more to do with the situation than you kneeling before the presence of Christ.

 

[Zzyzx_Road]

Clearly it is not okay, given the passive aggressiveness in this post. I’m guessing that might have a lot more to do with the situation than you kneeling before the presence of Christ.

Psychoanalyze much?

If I really was passive aggressive as you seem to think, no woman ever anywhere would touch me with a ten foot pole… My mother and father would definitely notice. And call it out as they did when I was young. I learned long ago to lose that sort of behavior and outlook, it’s unattractive to the Lord. Not to mention other people. I also learned I can’t change other people, I can only change myself. I learned not to lose sleep over what other people are thinking. My current date seems to like me a lot, we’re going dancing this weekend.

 

[masuwerte]

FWIW. When my wife (who is Catholic) and I first married, I know that she was not particularly devout. We were married in a civil ceremony, she would miss Mass sometimes, and she would attend an Episcopal service with me sometimes. She even received Communion there on occassion eek. She only became more devout after the circumstances of her life changed. Also, her previous BF (who was Catholic) cheated on her.