Mixed faith relationships

[Jennifer09]

Hi there,

I am a student doing an MA at City University in London, writing my dissertation on religion and relationships.

I'm looking to chat about this topic and whether people think marrying / having a relationship with someone of the same faith is important, particularly when it comes to children?

Or do you think relationships should be about free choice and religion shouldn't even come in to it?

How have MNers dealt with this in your own lives? Would love some feedback - anything said would remain totally anonymous as it is for academic research only.

But I'd really appreciate any help and I'd love to hear what people think about this topic and why!

Thank you!

You've offered only two very directive options, and implied that religious convictions are incompatible with free choice. If you were my student I'd suggest that you spend some more time examining your own position and preconceptions.

From my own experience, it's all more complicated than religion versus choice - successful interfaith relationships work because partners have found a way to integrate each other's faiths into one another's lives, without discarding or compromising their own.

In my experience, the problem lies not with the religions themselves nor the couples themselves but with families and religious communities. Have you seen Ken Loach's "Ae Fond Kiss" (Muslim/Catholic) or read Jeanette Winterson's "Oranges are not the only fruit" (Pentecostal/non-religious and same-sex) or Reva Mann's "The Rabbi's Daughter" (Jewish/various)? All, I think, are very telling.

You're asking about a very sensitive issue and MN is a very public forum. You might get more replies if you posted a university email address for people to contact you with more privacy...

Hi there,

Thank you for your comment, really interesting.

I don't think religious convictions are incompatible with free choice at all, was just trying to provoke a reaction.

But you're right an email address would be good, so if anyone would be interested in speaking further on the subject please email: [email protected]

Thanks again.

Good luck

Hi there,

I'm not at all embarrassed to talk to you about this topic. I deliberately chose to marry someone who shares my faith. Obviously people will say you can't choose who you fall in love with, but to some extent you can, as you don't fall in love with someone unless you spend time with them. I actively avoided a man who I was attracted to and who was attracted to me, because he did not share my faith,so eventually with the lack of contact the feelings disappeared. Several years later met a man who does share my faith and pursued the relationship, and we are now married

Reasons for wanting to marry only someone who shares my faith:

my beliefs inform all my opinions and life choices so it would be difficult to spend the rest of my life with someone who was facing a different direction.

Makes it much easier raising kids, fewer arguments.

We have a common moral code which can be appealed to by both of us in an argument (e.g. one of us can't say it's ok to look at porn/sit around the house being lazy/waste money/gamble/etc cos we both know that we both think it's wrong.

If you want to discuss any of this further with me feel free to get in touch

I think that it is important to have, at minimum, total respect for a spouse's faith.

I don't think I could have married someone who wasn't Christian, and I would certainly encourage my children to find Christian partners.

The Christian faith takes over your whole life and it is hard on an atheist spouse. who does not always appreciate the time and money that gets diverted to Christian mission.

Thank you all for your comments - really great to hear.

@imgonnaliveforever would love to talk to you in more detail - any chance you could pop me an email on [email protected]?

i am a very thorough atheist and i could not have married someone religious.

Like imgonnaliveforever, I also deliberately chose to marry someone who shared my faith. For me, my faith is an integral part of my life, and I could not see myself being with someone who could/would not understand why I would want to bring my children up a certain way, with a particular belief system. Even though I've married someone professing the same faith, it hasn't been 100% plain sailing - what tenets of the faith does the person hold important, how does the person interpret particular teachings of that faith? Was the partner simply born into the faith (cultural) or genuinely practising? We still have disagreements regarding certain issues of our faith, and personally, I think if I'd married someone from a different belief structure, things would have been even more difficult.

I deliberately married a Christian because I am a Christian.

I wouldn't be compatible with someone who didn't share my core beliefs as we wouldn't have the same foundations, moral outlook and viewpoint on the world and our children would also get confused!!

Being married to someone who doesn't share your beliefs or different beliefs can be very lonely.

sorry typo - "or has different beliefs can be very lonely."

after having prayed for 8years for a husband,God gave me one,and he didn't believe in anything,,well,i spent years getting to know him,and we got married but i told him i would marry him on the condition that our kids would be raised christians,,well this man is wonderful,our first born baby is 9 weeks and every sunday my husband prepares her for church,bathes and feeds her for me while i relax,and if i show no interest in going to church,he presses till i change my mind,and sometimes i act that way so i can see how wonderful he is,,he has stopped laughing at christianity and i don't force,,instead my actions do the preaching as the bible instructs,,he holds me when i pray and when im going through a crisis he asks me to pray,,bu then again this man is Godsend,,

As zozzle said except I am muslim. We don't agree on everything (no two people are identical in all beliefs even in the same faiths) but agree on the basics.

To add another perspective, I am atheist and my husband is Christian.

I have agreed to allow him to have our children baptised, on the basis that it does them no harm - as far as I am concerned it is just a bit of water and a quaint but meaningless ceremony. However, I intend to talk to them about my viewpoint as they get older and are able to understand (they are only toddlers now). I do not think the children will get confused, instead I believe they will feel free to choose.

Our day to day relationship is not affected by his religion. One does not need to believe in god to have morals and values, so there is no conflict there. We do occasionally enjoy debating the topic and we both challenge each other on points that arise, but I see it as an interesting intellectual exercise.

My DH is Muslim and I am, I guess, Christian although not practising. Sometimes i think it would be easier to be the same religion as we do have different ideas on some things. My dds are 4 and 5 and attend a C of E school which has a few different religions within it. It is a very good school and that is why we choose for the children to go there. DH is much more strict with the girls than i am although he is a fairly relaxed Muslim. We live in a pre-dominantly white middle-class area.

We fell in love and have been married for nearly 8 years. I think the religion thing will come into play more when the girls are a bit older.

I am Muslim as is my husband. Neither of us would have considered marrying a non-Muslim. Even though we are both quite private about our faith, it is something very beautiful that we share. I really do appreciate having shared values and goals.

I am a Catholic convert, married my husband before I "changed"! He is not particularly a believer ( I think he may have some beliefs deep down, but was not brought up with any religious instruction at all).

Having said that, whenever we go away on holiday, he helps me find the nearest RCC, and gets up early and drives me there, hangs about with the dog while I am in church, then off we go to enjoy the rest of our day together! So he is really supportive in that way. He has no objection to our children being baptised in the RCC, and brought up as RC. I am pregnant with our first at the moment, and we are both so very excited, as we have waited a while! I truly believe this is a gift from God, and I think that (although he would find it uncomfortable to say it out loud) he does too.

There have been several occassions where bad things have happened to us, and friends, and he has seen me praying - and things have worked out. He sort of acknowledges that "there might be something in it then" so I think that while he will probably never come with me and join the church, he is supportive. I continue to pray that one day he will, as I am sometimes sad that we do not share the faith, particularly when I see families in church. Maybe when the baby is born, he might be persuaded! I live in hope!

Good luck with your thesis.

Yes you should marry someone thats a christian too. I became a christian 20 years ago but was already with my husband who isnt he doesnt mind me going to church or taking the children but now two of them are older and dont want to go any more and my son will just say dad doesnt go so I dont want to. I think children need parents that have the same values and belives other wise they get confused and dont now who to respect. Life would have been so much easier for all if we were both christians ,but im still praying for dh and children to belive.

I'm an atheist, dh is a Buddhist.

It causes periodic stress - it upsets him that I simply have no respect for his faith. I fully respect his right to have a faith; I just think his beliefs are total woo.

We usually avoid discussing it! & we share the vast majority of our core values.

If he were a strict Catholic, or Muslim, say, & required the dc to be brought up in his faith, I think it'd be unworkable.

budhists are atheists though. ie they dont believe in a god figure. therefore you have more in common than you think.

Buddhists do believe in supernatural beings, it is a 2500-year-old religion, not some sort of post-modern spirituality born in the post-enlightenment.

do they? i thought they didnt believe in the supreme being that other religions term 'God' therefore, with no belief in god, they're atheisits. that their religon was about elevating oneself to a higher plane, but, without the mention of a supreme being

but i am happy to be informed otherwise.

Ladysybil, believe you me, there's a little bit more to both atheism & buddhism than 'not believing in a god figure'!

On a day-to-day basis, suffice it to say that whilst dh & I have a shared outlook on most things, when it comes to religion we agree to disagree.

It's mostly the actual practice aspect - he'll spend time chanting most days; I don't 'get' the benefit of this as an activity at all, but accept that it's one of his idiosyncracies, much as I have to go to bed early with a book & NOT BE DISTURBED FFS once a week or so or I start coming through doors like Jack Nicholson in 'The Shining'.

The difference is, I don't expect 'having an early night with a good book' to be regarded by anyone else as activity on a higher plane...