Wife's support

[searcher]

My wife is a wonderful, loving and supportive woman. We have been married for over 30 years and still have a great relationship. She has been very tolerant of my study of the Catholic Church, but I’m sure she secretly hopes I will let it go. We both have some serious questions about the teachings of the LDS Church, but for my wife the Church’s emphasis on the family outweigh any theological issues. She has an uncanny ability to compartmentalize and seems to have carried much of her previous Protestant faith into the LDS Church.

She fears that I someday might want to convert to the Catholic Church and that this will cause a rift between us and our family. She wants to be supportive and I want her support. We’re not getting any younger and both of us fear what the future might bring if I continue my study of the Catholic faith.

I know there are others on the forum in similar situations. How do you handle your search for answers and still maintain family unity?

 

[ChristopherMich]

Unfortunately, you are in a difficult situation. Is there any reason to her rejection of the Catholic faith? I would start there.

 

[Della]

If one of the main reasons your wife wants to remain in the LDS is their strong support of family life you might want to start there in discussing the Catholic faith with her. There is no more pro-family Church than the Catholic Church of all the traditional Christian churches. Catholics believe that the family is the primary “church” in which children are taught to love God and to serve him and their neighbor. Look up family life in the Catechism.

 

[hlgomez]

Catholics believe that the family is the primary “church” in which children are taught to love God and to serve him and their neighbor. Look up family life in the Catechism.

I think the proper title is “domestic churches” for the families as stated in the Catechism.

Pio

 

[Della]

hlgomez:

I think the proper title is “domestic churches” for the families as stated in the Catechism.

Pio

Thanks! I couldn’t remember the more exact term for it.

 

[searcher]

My wife has great admiration for the Catholic Church’s strong family values and its unswerving allegiance to the “culture of life”. She feels that we are too old to make such drastic changes in our lives, especially if they will cause disruption in our family relations. She still has very close ties with her strongly Protestant family and they have finally gotten used to and tolerant our “Mormonism”, a shift toward Catholicism might cause another breach it has taken years to mend. None of my family of origin is currently active in the LDS Church so the break would not be as traumatic for me. I’m not sure how my children will react.