to hate my husband's new found faith?!

[Tilly80]

I've been married for 8 years and my husband had never shown an interest in religion. When our DD (now 4) was only one and half my DH suddenly found Christianity. He said he'd had visions in his dreams and that God spoke to him! At first I was supportive and went along to his baptism. I found it strange but it didn't affect us as a couple/family.

A few months after his baptism he started going to a Russian Orthodox church every Sunday. When I told him I found it hard coping for about 5 hours on a Sunday alone with DD and a dog to walk we had a huge row and he said he'd sacrificed enough for this family and he needed his own time. (When do I get my own time?!)

We had awful rows for quite a while and I felt completely trapped as, working part-time, I can't afford to support myself and DD. I've put up with this for 2 years now. He now takes our DD every Sunday too, which gives me a break, but I don't like her being influenced by it all. It's all so intense (I went once and it's not like a 'normal' church if that makes any sense!) He was also desperate to have our DD baptised at this church (and himself again!) and although I didn't want her to be, I had to agree to save the rows.

Every night he reads faith books (before, we used to watch TV together). I feel sick inside when he reads them as I feel like he's getting brainwashed. I know that sounds extreme but I find it all so weird! This has come out of the blue and it seems to dominate his life. I dread Sundays and I hate him and DD going to this church. My DH wants nothing more than for me to join them, but it's not my thing at all. I'm worried this is now my life - feeling sick to the stomache with his religion.

If anyone can give some advice or has experience with something like this I'd love to hear from you!

Cassette, the issue isn't so much that he has developed an interest in religion - it's the complete and utter personality change that's come with it and the prioritising of this new found interest above his wife and daughter.

It's the complete and utter change, which is making people think there is a mh concern, not the fact that he is a christian. Most people would be concerned no matter what the religion he had adopted, because it is so out of character.

In the OP's position, I would feel that this was not the man I had chosen to marry.

Wrt the daughter, I would say that daddy believes X, mummy doesn't agree and believes Y and that it is perfectly okay for people within families to have different opinions and that no one is 'right' or 'wrong'. If your husband has any respect for you, he will not denigrate your position to your child. Likewise, you have to pay lip service to respecting his, when you talk to dd.

Given that he is the one who has changed the terms of your agreement, he has no right to object to you refusing to raise your dd within his religion.
Personally, I would plan my way out - who wants to come third on a list, in which their dh prioritises god. fuck that.

Cassette why don't you move in with her husband seeing as your his biggest cheerleader.

OP, the thing that really sticks out the most to me about what you say is the extreme conservatism of your DH's beliefs. Has he always been that conservative in his views on e.g. women, sexuality etc? If not, that?s a huge change. I admit that I come to this as a person of faith, but is it possible that that might be a bigger issue than the religion itself?

I think it can be perfectly possible for one religious and one non-religious person to have a happy marriage, but both sides need to be liberal-minded enough to allow the other their difference. If he needs time to himself and wants to spend it exploring his faith, would it be possible for you to come to terms with that on the understanding that you also need a little time to yourself, and he needs to look after your (plural!) dd for a certain time each week while you go for a walk/whatever?

And he also needs to make time for family things, non-church activities that are as much for you as they are for him, together. He?s married to you. He?s made vows to you ? whether or not that took place in a church, I?m sure the majority of Christians would agree that he has a responsibility before God to uphold those vows to you. At the same time, since Orthodoxy isn't your family religion, totally reasonable imo for you to insist that dd shouldn't be baptised until she's on the way to adulthood and able to make that decision for herself.

Sorry, I didn't read properly that you'd already agreed to dd's baptism. Has it already taken place? Didn't the priest want to speak to both of her parents beforehand?

Cassette its not about Christianity its about a sudden conversion to a belief system based on dreams where a "higher being" is speaking to him.

If one of my parents (devout Christians) had announced that Allah had appeared to them in 3 dreams and they were becoming active "hyperkeen" Muslims I would be worried.

If my DH (devout Muslim) had announced that Jesus had appeared to him in 3 dreams and he was becoming an active "hyperkeen"Christian I would be worried.

In both cases my concern would be based on the sudden and dramatic change of behaviour rather than the particular faith involved.

So this man has deliberately chosen a cult that denigrates women and gay men, because liberal Anglicanism wasn't misogynistic and homophobic enough for him.
I'd be dumping him for that aspect of his silly superstitions, that's the big problem.

Actually I think any religion/sect that doesn't allow women into the upper echelons does very much denigrate women.

And there are huge swathes of the bible that do likewise.

Having said that, obvs there are very very many lovely and non woman hating Christians.

Faith is mental though, I get it that a lot of people get brought up with it so they find it hard to get it out their heads. But as a rational adult suddenly believing that something magical exists is pretty crazy. Actually explain to me HOW it is different believing in god to believing in any other magical being that someone with mh hallucinations is experiencing?

Cassette, look at the way he's been treating her. That's where the selfish prick accusations come from, not because he has become a Christian.

I think you should approach the church and ask to speak urgently with a priest about all of this, tell them about your concerns specifically about your husband, your relationship and time together being eroded by his religious reading (plus any other relationship issues that have arisen since his baptism and joining the congregation) and the way he has dealt with the question of your DD's baptism.

Do this without criticising religion in general or this one in particular.

(fwiw, I have a Greek Orthodox friend who does attend the entire liturgy on Sundays along with her children, and even longer ones on holy days. The husband is RC and they all get along fine, a really great couple.)

Thank you for all your advice. It's not something I like to discuss with friends and family as I don't want them to think I'm really unhappy (which obviously I am a lot of the time.) I will prepare myself for spliting up at some point, but will see if he'll calm it down and attempt suggesting counselling again. If all that fails, then I have no choice really.

I think (all the waa-ing from other posters about how their bullshit superstition is better than other bullshit superstitions aside) the big problem is that what has basicaly happened is your H has gone seeking supernatural justification for treating you as his pet/servant/inferior. He wants an imaginary friend to blame his misogyny on. That's not good.

I'd like to add that it's not him suddenly becoming Christian that's the issue, it's the sudden change to our lives/routine etc. I've said to him on many occasions that if he became Muslim, read the Qu'ran every night and attended a mosque I'd have the same feelings as I do now! It just seems to be consuming him - he'll try to read me parts of the bible and he's got over 25 faith books in the bedroom! His uncle got him an icon of Jesus after his baptism and DH put it on the bedroom wall! It made me so mad. He did then take it down afetr I calmly pointed out it wasn't to my taste. He also now wears a huge cross necklace (again from the uncle). Every time I see it I cringe. I know that sounds extreme, but it all just gets to me so much. As for me finding a hobby while he's at church, well I spend my time doing marking and plannign so I don't have to get up at 5am every morning during the week. So I'm not crying at home all alone, I'm using the time constructively. Unfortunately, my job takes over any free time I have without DD aorund.

I think this is a big part of who he is now and as you dislike it so much, in a way you dislike him IFYSWIM. I don't think he is mentally ill, he is as free as the next person to develop himself spiritually as he sees fit but of course he is becoming a different man to the one you married in a lot of ways and it feels odd and unsettling for you .That is perfectly understandable.

My personal take on this is that you should let him go if you cannot have a positive, open marriage with him the way he is. It is not correct to put him under pressure to not develop his spirituality however he wants. We shoudl all be free to do that including if this means to reject spirituality for ourselves. I couldn't live with someone who tried to deflect me from whatever my spiritual development was at any given time. I don't think you have that right v.a.v. another person. You no longer like him much, you don't respect his beliefs and they are taking up a lot of space in his life, so I think you have to face the facts that you will need to work full-time and separate from him before the whole situation becomes unpleasantly soured and affects your dd. A lot of people work full-time, it isn't the end of the world. I know it isn't what you want but going around behind his back speaking to his priest about him or trying to get people to think he is mentally ill isn't my idea of the way to go about things.

It seems to me that his family is as much into this as he is.

I really recommend going and talking to the priest about what you have described. It is possible to have a good relationship with a partner and also do the church thing and most clergy would not like to see someone sacrifice a relationship for commitment to a religion or have it come between parents in the case of the DD's baptism, or have a child caught in the middle where two parents are at odds.

The exception to this would be some sort of cult and if the priest or priests you speak with don't seem sympathetic to you and your concerns for the relationship then I would be inclined to see what he is mixed up in more in that light than as a normal church.

Assessing the way the clergy see this would tell you much about the church. It might also help if you got them to suggest to your H that he needs to reprioritise his family and find a way to incorporate the newfound religion better with his prior commitment. You would have to decide if you can accept his beliefs at all, but I think that is a separate matter from the way you are being treated and the way a sort of third party has entered your relationship.

He sounds needy and a bully. What made him turn to the church?

Having come from a extreem christian background myself, i know how cult like it can be. It's not healthy or balanced.