My husband and I have been together for about 8 years, married for 4. He is from Egypt and is Muslim. I am culturally Christian although philosophically/religiously humanist.
When we met, DH was not really a practicing Muslim. He would fast at Ramadan, but drank alcohol, ate pork and non-Halal meat, didn't pray, and we lived together for several years before getting married.
Before we married, we had lots of discussions about religion and faith, and we both felt that we have very similar underlying values, even if mine are humanist and his are faith-based. We also agreed that we would raise children as Muslim, so that when they are adults they have the cultural/religious knowledge to participate in faith-based events if they want to. In practice, this means that we do all the Christian and Muslim festivals, plus Halloween and everything else. He also tries to speak Arabic with DS (although really struggles with this when we're in the UK as he basically thinks in English); I'm also learning Arabic, which I enjoy - although basically have no time to work on this now that we have a child and a busy job.
In the past couple of years, since having our DS (nearly 3), he has been getting gradually more religious. He doesn't drink alcohol, no longer eats pork, and tries to pray 5 times a day. This year he has also sometimes been doing the extra Ramadan Taraweeh prayers.
Just to be clear, he's not fundamentalist at all, he doesn't want me to convert or anything and our DS is not circumcised. Similarly, if we had a DD he wouldn't expect her to ever wear a hijab. He's a very involved parent and does more than his share of household tasks and life admin / mental load.
Overall, I want to be supportive of his religious practice, as it's meaningful to him, and I think it's helping him feel positive about himself and his identity as a Muslim in the UK. When we first met, I felt like there was a big difference in how he behaved in the UK vs when we were in Egypt, and I think he's finding a way to be true to both those parts of himself, rather than switching based on context.
But I'm finding it hard that there is an increasing part of his life that I just don't relate to at all. And I'm starting to feel quite disconnected from him. Trying to talk about it doesn't really help because we both seem to get quite defensive quite easily. We've also had 2 pregnancy losses in the last 6 months and while he's found comfort in something around things being God's will I've found that alienating and upsetting (even though it's quite similar to saying that sometimes bad stuff just happens). I'm also anxious about him getting more like his dad, who is both very religious and very traditional/culturally conservative, in future - although in practice I think this is quite unlikely.
How can we work on feeling connected with each other again? I didn't expect such a big change in his religious practice and it feels strange to me.