Hey so this evening I told my husband that I am not a Christian anymore. He was really shocked but we didn't really talk about it properly he said he needs more time to think about it before discussing it properly.
I've been having doubts over my faith for some time but largely kept them to myself. When I have talked to him he's said something like 'it is normal to have doubts but we just need to trust God. We can never understand everything and we need to understand that some things only God can understand.' and told me to pray about it. He is a really devout Christian and is involved a lot with the Church and he runs a lot of youth groups there. I do feel bad about this all for his sake
I feel like I don't know whether I can continue our marriage anymore. I love him so much and he is such a caring loving man. But I don't know if either of us can fully respect each other anymore. And I don't know if it will work now we have such different beliefs. I know there is no way he'd have dated an atheist when we first started dating. I don't know whether it is right to continue being together but I do love him I just not sure if it is best. I still don't really know exactly what I believe and still have to work out a lot about my beliefs.
We also have 3 children who are 7 4 and 1 and I don't know how we can coparent together with different faiths regardless of whether we stay together. Right now we are kinda force-feeding them with Christian stuff and presenting it all as facts. I've been feeling really guilty about doing this recently. I feel like he wants to take every opportunity to share his faith with them. He has gotten very defensive and irritated sometimes when another adult has shared a differing view in front of them. I feel like one thing I dislike about Christianity and religion in general is that it presents something with so much uncertainty with such rigid answers. I also hate forcing these beliefs on our children and don't want to do it anymore. I feel like I want to teach them how to think critically and to be inquisitive and I don't think that we are doing that at the moment. I also don't think I'd ever have considered being religious if I wasn't raised in one. I know this sounds horrible and there are lots of good adjectives you can describe my husband as but I don't think inquisitive is one of them. I don't know how we can coparent successfully together anymore without having major disagreements and problems. Just wondering if anyone has any advice on how this all could work or if you've raised children with different faiths. Thanks