My husband and I were raised in the same religion, but today I am more observant than he is -- I'm still not sure where I stand on actually believing everything but I do go to church. It's harder than I thought it would be given that our church is very family-oriented and I am always there by myself or just with my kids. My kids are just barely old enough to begin learning about this stuff and I imagine it will continue to be a challenge. Right now we are in the "respect each other's beliefs" corner but sometimes "respect" might not be quite the right word, if ya know what I mean. damn that was wordy. hope you got something out of it.

Can't answer any of your questions, but when I was a kid, I wanted to marry a Jew so that I could celebrate both Chaunakah AND Christmas with my kids. I guess there's not much stopping me from doing that ANYWAY, but still, I thought it would be cool to have NINE days of presents!

I was raised in an actively Catholic family. My husband was baptized, and that was pretty much the end of it. I wandered away from my faith for a while, which is when I met him. I got more involved in my faith again before we got married, and we explored getting married in the Catholic church, including what that might include in terms of his getting further involved in Catholicism. But that all sort of dissipated when the priest we met with told him he would have to be "rehabilitated" before we could talk any further. We got married, but not in the Catholic church, and the faith discussion has gone by the wayside. He doesn't argue with my beliefs, and I don't push him about his lack of belief in much of anything. We agree to respect each other. And while we don't have kids, I think that's what we will teach them - respect, for whatever they decide. They'll be exposed to both my perspective and to my husband's in their early years, which I suppose will shape their adult beliefs. I would like my kids to grow up knowing they have some sort of Power that can be a guide for them no matter what happens, and I'm okay if they define that however they like. I don't feel strongly about the specifics, as long as they find something that works for them.

Um. We're both heathens here. I fully expect a lightning strike at any moment of my existance.

Dunno - but it shore is gonna be interesting... ;) Gonna require a LOT of open-mindedness, patience, tolerance, and gen-u-ine love.

My father is a Baptist minister and I married a Catholic. My husband is not devout at all. In the 10 years we have been married there have been a few times that "religion" has been an issue. We would argue and then he would say he didn't know enough religion to argue with me about it. We have been through a lot in our marriage, including losing our first son when he was 11 days old. God and I are not very close any more so it is not that big of a deal right now. Our two year old has just started saying goodnight prayers. I'm not sure where we will go from here. I would say the best thing is to respect each other and make decisions about the raising of your children before you have them.

Well, I am in an interfaith marriage. I married my Jewish husband 7+ years ago. While I was a Christian, I'd really decided to put my faith on the back burner for the marriage/love I so wanted. It wasn't the best thing to do to start a relationship. It took me a long time to realize that I was really supressing something that was important to me. So, I've started to go back to church and started down the road to re-find my own faith. Now, my husband isn't very practicing, in fact he bristles at the very mention of God or faith -- yet, he would really like our son to be raised Jewish -- which frankly makes no sense to me. So, the net-net to me is that when starting an interfaith relationship, you MUST sit down and be really honest about how important your faith is to you. Ultimately (and I'm sure my pants will be a little burned for this), how important your faith is to you is inversely proportional to your willingness to get into an interfaith relationship. I should say the biggest exception would be if your faith is REALLY important and the other party doesn't care at all. But if both parties are passionate about their faith, it really is just a recipe for a fight. Sorry for being wordy, but this strikes a cord with me -- especially in the "if I knew then what I know now" category.

My first husband was Catholic and I am Protestant. Whew, talk about debates. He called my religion fake and that we didn't want to follow G-d's true law. I called his greedy and they made up rules on a whim. Riveting times they were. When he died, I practically pleaded with the ER nurse to get him a priest for his last rites. His family claimed I never did and that he was in Hell b/c of me. Needless to say, I have nothing to do with his family at all. Now, Geo is a Mormon while I am a Presbyterian. How do we handle religion in our house? He doesn't practice and I do. Problem solved.

I am a faithless fallen Catholic and my husband actually became Catholic (from Lutheran) when we got married (before I had completely given up on faith). He still prays regularly, privately, but does not attend church. I have refused to go to any church. Our kids are not being raised with any particular faith, but have absorbed some sort of belief in God just from living in OK. Wild Thing and I actually had a disturbing little conversation the other day: WT: Mom, it scares me to say 'swear to God'. Me: Honey, you never have to say that. WT: But, is the devil real? Me: No, completely fake and made up to scare people. WT: Well, then what happens to you if you break a promise to God? Me: Well, I've never made a promise to God. I make promises to people I love and respect. And I only make promises I know I can keep. And we went from there, but what a hard conversation for a six-year-old! What I really wanted to say was, "Honey, I have to tell you that I don't believe in that. I respect those who do, but I do not. You have nothing to worry about." Bottom line is that my husband and I respect each other. My friends and I respect each other. I find that I'm in the minority, believe it or not, and I'm OK with that.

I don't believe anything, and my husband is of little faith. However, my mother is Protestant and my father was raised Jewish and converted to Athiesm (or really Agnosticism). They made a deal before we were born to raise their children in the church since it mattered to my Mom and my Dad didn't care.

I'm s Pluralist with beliefs leaning more Pagan and Buddist and my husband is a non-practicing Protestant. He treats my ideals as "cute" and "funny" until he needs something. Then he says things like "can you arrange the furniture so that I can have a ittle more luck this week?" Silly mister.

It's funny that you ask... Jeff and I have just been talking about this recently - what to tell our son about a higher power, afterlife, etc. Neither of us are religious, in fact Jeff tends more to the atheist than the agnostic, which is what I am, but he's the one who wants to teach the baby a more religious view of these concepts. I think it's kind of hypocritical to teach something you don't believe yourself, so we're still working it out.

I was raised as Catholic, but i gave it up for Lent years ago. I listen quietly and respectfully nod whenever my S.O. wants to go into religion. I find it relaxing to zone out for a bit.

I was raised Jewish - had a bat mitzvah and everything, although because my mom wasn't really Jewish and because of the crazy peer pressure on non-Christian kids in North America, my family always celebrated Christmas in the usual commerical, non-denominational way. My husband's a Mennonite - his dad is a pastor! Neither of us is really a practicing religion type, and we don't have kids yet but I know this will become more of an issue. We both celebrate Christmas and last year I went to an Easter service with the in-laws for the first time. At heart I am more committed to Jewish traditions though and will definitely want to expose my child to them in addition to the Canadian-Christian holidays like Easter and Christmas. It's a very tough issue. My father-in-law married us, and my father assured everyone that if Jesus or the Holy Ghost were mentioned in the ceremony, he'd walk out. Luckily my FIL is respectful and understanding so this wasn't an issue but it definitely has potential to cause some discord in the family.

Well, Katie is Catholic and I'm Agnostic. The only tough thing was jumping through all the hoops so we could be married in her family's church. As for the future, we'd like to have some religion in our lives especially when the kids come along, but it'll be more about what church we like than what denomination of Christianity it represents.

Most religions have the same theme and stories, it's mainly the terminology that is different. Just don't ever say that out loud, especially to a Southern Baptist in these here parts. Lord, have mercy! I'm a liberal Methodist who is a wanna-be Taoist. I was married to a Southern Baptist for 15 years...we barely talked about anything, but kids and weather. The last Southern Baptist (I'm picking on them since they are my total and complete opposite!) boyfriend I had lasted six weeks. When I told him that I would like to be able to discuss religion/spirituality openly and eventually would want to share those things in a relationship, his reply was, "Oh. I thought I'd just convert you." As if. I would say communication, openness and tolerance is the key. If you've got that, you can figure the rest out as you go.

my husband and I are both of the heathen faith, so we work very well together. :D

I am spiritual but abhor 'religion', my Hubby is Baptist but not practicing and our daughter brings home WWJD magnets and quotes bible verses. I don't know what to tell you other than that which has already been stated. BE honest! Both with yourself and your hunny. Know the the kids' religion may be a much bigger deal than you might think.

My husband and I were both raised catholic...I Roman catholic and he Byzentine (where they sing the whole service). I find his version bizarre and he feels the same way on mine. I let my mother in law take the kids to church...basically because I don't want to...not to mention I enjoy the free time to go grocery shopping.

Thanks for visiting my blog today! YEAH!! A new blog friend! I chose this post to leave a comment on. I grew up Catholic, and according to my in-laws that translated into "heathen". They were born again Christians who went to church almost daily, to a home-grown church they helped build. Luckily my husband is not born again. He was totally burned out by the time he got out of the house. So his burnout of born-again-ism, in addition to my newfound bad attitude toward the Catholic church, led us to choose a whole different church. Basically we chose one where our friends go and is near our home. So now we're Methodists! This probably doesn't help you at all, but at least I got to post on your blog. I'll be stopping back again and again!

Oh for the love of everything that is holy..just enjoy the sex! he he. And no I'm not in an inner faith relationship. Bill grew up in Baptist and I grew up Free Will Baptist. Which means I'm way more freer than he is.

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