To not know how to end this bloody difficult situation?

[TickingTimeBombx3]

Been meaning to write this post for some time now but it really hurts me to think of it and there's no easy solution to this. I have to make a decision about what to do and would like to know what people's advice would be. To cut a long story short DH and I met about 15 years ago and he chased after me for some time before we finally got together. Our different religious denominations has always been a sore point mainly due to family/tradition and what was expected of us actually, rather than our own beliefs as persons. I am more religious than he is but nevertheless we both thought we could rise above it and work through it. Wedding happened by having two separate services at the two different churches but there was some tension between our families at the time. Then the first child came and within days of her birth DH and I were arguing about how she cannot be baptised at my church it has to be his church as this is how he will retain the respect of his family/community. He said I should know when I married him this was the "done thing" and he also stated that could be a point that leads to divorce. I was very upset with him about this but didn't want to contemplate a divorce when we just had a baby. I could see that neither did he, he just said a lot of hurtful things as a reaction to the pressure he felt. I was broken. I really did want my DC to be baptised and never expected that it would come to this. After a lot of arguing without coming to a solution that would be acceptable to both of us he suggested that we shouldn't baptise her and stopped wanting to discuss it further. I was so sick and tired that I decided to keep quiet about this issue and work at getting the relationship back on track. I then did a terrible thing as I had my DC baptised at my church without DH knowing. I thought I would tell DH down the line when I had time to think if it and cleared my head.

Fast forward 5 years and we now have a lovely family, a stable relationship and another DC2 together who is a baby. I still have not told him the truth about DC1's baptism and not a day goes by without thinking of how he might react and how this could all brake our family/ happiness. I absolutely love our family and never wanted to put our happiness at risk. Now I would like nothing more than to baptise DC2 at my church but it would mean the same happening again as DH has reiterated he would not consent to having his children baptized. I know I made my own bed, but he also has never considered if I was happy with his decision not to baptise the DC and never tried to solve the problem with any of the solutions I proposed. When do you think I should tell him? I am so sad that I am faced with this awful situation and feel stupid that I didn't make sure we agreed on this issue before we got married.

[Jedimum1]

In my opinion, baptising your first child in secret is a betrayal. Especially since you knew it was a big deal and your husband threatened with divorce at the time. He might have decided that not baptising the children was the easiest way out for both families to stop putting pressure, whilst also allowing the children to decide when older. I think you should just be quiet and forget about it. Don't baptise your second and let them decide when older. By then, you can come clean and explain that you realised it had been a mistake to baptise your first in secret and that's why you haven't done it with the second. Given that you both care about religion or its effect on your different families, I think saying the truth now won't help anyone and least of all your children. You will do serious damage to your relationship and the relationship with the in-laws, plus if they are that bothered, you cannot tell if it will affect their relationship with your children. I'd move on but avoid repeating the same mistake, personally

[Italiangreyhound]

TickingTimeBombx3 I am so sorry this has happened to your family.

In terms of what to do with your second child, I think I would say do as you wish to recognize the potential risk is your dh finds out and that is the end of your marriage.

Your husbands reasons for wanting to baptize or not baptize your kids are not very 'spiritual'. I don't know what he gets to have the final say.

Just so you know my husband and I did not agree. We read a book about it (we went to the same church) and we ended up both changing our minds, and so still not agreeing! We ended up not baptizing but dedicating our children instead. We are both church going Christians (C of E) and are not worried about our children's destination because they have not yet been baptized.

But OP I can understand you wanting to do the same for both your kids and I think that maybe things between you and dh are not as close as you say because you know you cannot tell him this secret very easily.

Hope things work out.

BalloonSlayer
"The trouble with that wombling is baptism is an unrepeatable sacrament. You can't do it more than once."

"I am not sure this is true. Baptist churches will do a "full immersion" baptism of adults and it doesn't matter if you were baptised as a child."

That is because Baptist churches do not recognize infant baptism.

However as far as I am aware the Roman Catholic Church will recognize baptism in other denominations.

canonlawmadeeasy.com/2010/03/11/do-converts-have-to-be-rebaptized/

But this does not seem to be the case for the Orthodox church. So it does depend maybe which two denominations the OP is talking about.

[SouthWindsWesterly]

I know this is a case of after the horse has bolted, but why did you not discuss this before having children?!

I'm in a similar situation - I'm one religion, DH is another. We discussed this before marriage. If I understand correctly, it isn't just baptism for orthodox religions, but also HC and confirmation at the same time?

He was UR for insisting that as the man, the children followed his religion - this sounds like it's for peacock showing as opposed to actual belief. You were UR for having a religious ceremony without the knowledge of your spouse - as said above, that is a betrayal especially as you did discuss it. Your DH's suggestion of not baptising was the middle road. You ignored that.

You have a choice - tell your DH or not. The longer you don't tell him though, the worse it will be. The thing is your husband did compromise by saying no baptism so neither side "won" whereas you didn't.
Either tell him or don't, but do not get your second child baptised without his knowledge. If if you do get your second child baptised, offer for a RC one. You may not see that as helpful as above but it solves the problem.

And if you really wanted for children to decide their religion when older for themselves, you would have respected your husbands suggestion.

[strawberrisc]

Wow. John Lennon was right.

[Ineke]

"Our two branches of Christianity hate each other" . In my opinion that says it all. What about love, is there no place for that, does it really matter whose Church baptises the child, really, in the grand scheme of things, is it some sort of competition? Religion seems to me to be its own worst enemy. I was born into a strict Catholic Family, did all the baptism, First Holy Comminion, Confirmation, Catholic Boarding school for 11 years. I stopped believing in a God when I was an adult and am now a practising Buddhist. If I were you, I would let your children make their own minds up when they had a better understanding of what it means. For your own peace of mind you can baptise them yourself, it won't make a blind bit of difference to them. It's not worth waging a religious war within your family. You need to sort out your differences as this conflict will not go away otherwise. What about when they grow up and maybe want to get married, how is that going to work if you can't agree on which branch of religion to follow.

[diodati]

The happiness and stability of your children should be your first concern. Confessing to your husband to relieve your guilt is selfish. Doing so would no doubt destroy your marriage, causing your children immense pain.

Religious war in a marriage. Jesus wept.

[LaLegue]

I am orthodox and he is Catholic for those asking

Ah. That's very telling then. As GealicSiog* said earlier upthread, the RC church recognises an Orthodox baptism but the RC baptism is not recognised in the Orthodox Church. So for you, a Catholic baptism is as good as no baptism at all.

Well I'll say the same to you as I said to her. If you honestly believe that God would turn away an innocent child from the gates of heaven because she didn't get her membership card properly stamped by the right people on earth then you seriously need to question why you are comfortable with following that particular faith at all.

[Westray]

And OP this is not a "bloody difficult situation".

Many people have "bloody difficult" situations through life limiting illness, family tragedy etc.

Your situation is totally of your own making.

[JanKind]

I showed this to my husband and straight away he said your husband has probably baptized her in his church. Can't you just have two baptisms?

[aurynne]

TickingTimeBombx3, Io have an alternative suggestion to address this problem.

As I understand, Orthodox faith recognises the sacrament of confession. My suggestion is that you confess to your priest, or directly to God, what you have done and ask for forgiveness and penitence. I you truly believe in God and in your Church, the only true solution to your problem comes directly from asking God, either directly or through a channel (your priest).

Than do as told by Him, and accept the consequences. This is the only way to be true to yourself and your God, and I believe you already knew this. You just need to be brave enough to ask the question, and accept the answer regardless of the consequences.

[Temporary2002]

You were dishonest. All this fuss over religion, should your husband not be more important than religion?
Just tell him what you did, and be prepared to have it done again at his religious place. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

[Shockers]

Apologies if the thread has moved on, but I stopped reading at this.

"Our two branches of Christianity hate each other."

Can you see it, OP? Can you see how Jesus has been lost in this? Baptise, or don't, but while you feel like this, it means nothing anyway.

[LaLegue]

totally agree with Shockers

[LittleOwl]

In which church do you go for family worship? That would be the logical choice for any baptism- if that happens to be your church, can you ask your husband to have the ceremony there without Any guests and it never discussed at the wider family (that will get him off the pressure hook) ---- if it is his Church it is logical to have DC2 baptised there. What surprises me USC is that if the time of the church ceremony one of the churches did not force you to sign to bring up the kids in their faith (happens with RC "mixed" ceremonies in my country) - if that is the case, and all parties signed, bit of a done deal. My heart goes out to you - I would tackle and get agreement on DC2 first. I am the child of a mixed Christian marriage, so I get the tension

[Squishedstrawberry4]

Can't you just get them baptised at both?

[nuttynikki71]

I have four children...My three older ones 21,20 and 19 baptised, don't attend church now and middle one is now Atheist. My youngest is 7 different dad, who unfortunately died just before DS turned 2. I didn't get him baptised as dad didn't want it and neither did I and yes I am very lapsed Catholic!! My Biological mum wanted me to but I refused. Her views were well you got the other 3 baptised. Yes but my then husband wanted them to have a Catholic upbringing (he was CofE). My Youngest DS does attend church with his primary school which I don't understand why as it's not a Catholic school. I have attended a few times for his school Christmas plays. As his dad would say "I only attend church for hatches, matches and dispatches!".

[Millie2013]

I haven't RTFT, but OH was baptised as a baby, in secret and against this father's wishes (and MIL was placed under a fair bit of family pressure to get him baptised). FIL still doesn't know and it's like a horrible, festering little secret, all these years on.
OH was subsequently asked to be godfather to a family friend's child and we had to go behind FIL's back to go to the christening (MIL ended up telling FIL that it was a "naming ceremony")

[Booshbeesh]

I think your selfish. He doesn't consider if your happy. Like you did when you lied and went behind his back to baptise his child against his wishes.

[TWINS77]

GaelicSiog

Orthodoxy also doesn't recognise marriages in a Catholic Church. Catholicism accepts marriages in an Orthodox Church.

That is absolutely not true!
I am catholic and my husband orthodox, catholic church wouldn't marry us if he wouldn't be baptised in a chatolic church again, when orthodox church married us even thought l wouldn't change my religion, as we are christian all christian. We have two children and when the time is right we'll baptise them in both churches....

[TWINS77]

Today 04:36 LaLegue

I am orthodox and he is Catholic for those asking

Guys both churches are main stream christian and recognise baptism done in one of their churches, they might be tougher on marriage ceremonies, but l found that ortodox church is a bit more flexible about it...

[Jengnr]

So you encountered a situation where you had a conflict, discussed it and agreed to do nothing until the kids were older but you decided what you wanted was more important than your husband's feelings on the matter and went and did it anyway? You are well over the line and I would find it difficult to get past that; it just shows a total lack of respect for your partner.

[Ineke]

I may no longer be a believer and follow a particular church's doctrine. However, I have a strong commitment to marriage and relationship and believe that trust forms a large part of a good solid relationship. Previous posters have said that your husband has probably done the same thing in secret as you, baptising your child. If you are doing this behind each other's backs then I think your marriage needs a little attention, how can you trust one another? It is such a shame to make this an issue, loving one another will overcome your religious differences.

[millymaid]

You two need relationship counselling. The religious differences are not the real problem, the problem is you argued and couldn't agree, your DH threatened divorce if he couldn't get his way, you didn't feel respected and you did something you knew he wouldn't like and lied about it. This pattern could be played out over any other dispute, it's not healthy. You're not going to get through umpty years of marriage without respect for each other, trust and honesty. Have a look at the Relate website, they might have some good information for you. Good luck to you both.

[Mellifera]

So you are Russian Orthodox and he's Catholic?

Because the Greek Orthodox Church accepts the Catholic faith, baptism, weddings and has done so for at least 20 years.
I'm a bit surprised another Orthodox church 'hates' the Catholic church?

(I'm Catholic, DH Greek Orthodox, we had a wedding in my church with his priest present. We couldn't even have both ceremonies because they accept each others'. Our children are baptised in the Catholic faith, we actually agreed to do this when we married almost 20 years ago.)

I agree with pp who suggested couple counselling.
I hope you find a way to address this mess.

[willitbe]

TickingTimeBombx3 - I will post in a bit some links to websites that are about the acceptance/ non-acceptance of baptism and marriage between the Catholic and Orthodox churches. But as others have already pointed out, that is not really the issue. There is more of an problem that is not actually regarding this, but of the deceit that is perpetuating currently in your marriage and has been festering for 5 years now.

You ask "tips now on how to tell him if I decided to do that". That is very difficult to suggest how you might tell him. Perhaps think about how you would normally break bad news to him? I think you might find it helpful to write a letter to him, not to give to him, but it might help clarify what it is you want to say to him.

Things for you to think about:

Are you sorry for hurting him?

Do you, or do you not regret getting your first child baptised into your own church?

Do you still feel that you would "do anything" to get your second child baptised into your own church rather than wait till they can decide? (this you need to read some of the links I will put in a different post, Catholic view on original sin is not held in the same way as the Orthodox view, and there is not the same urgency to baptise and infant as is normally felt in the Catholic church)

How would you feel if by any chance his family have managed to get your child baptised into the Catholic church without you knowing?)

Do you want your marriage to survive?

What are you willing to do, in order to try to regain your husbands trust?

How will you prove to your husband that you will not do the same with your second child?

Think all these things through very carefully.
You will probably need some marriage counseling, how about this being with the Catholic service providers?????? How would you feel about this???

In the marriage counseling you may need to work together to decide how you want to support your children's religious and spiritual growth?

You will have to at some point tell your oldest child what you have done, you might find that they are happy you did it, or they too might be not happy that you got them baptised! You are in a difficult position, the sooner you get this dealt with the better.