The Challenge of Being Unequally Yoked

In my first post on this blog, an introduction of sorts, I wrote a little bit about my marriage in relation to my changing beliefs.  If I'm being honest, the toughest part of realizing that I wasn't a Christian anymore was breaking the news to my still-very-Baptist husband.  After all, we met at church, and when he married me, he married a strong, God fearing Christian in every sense of the description.  It was our mutual desire to raise our children as Christians and it was a large focus for our family's future.

Lots of things led up to my realization that I no longer believed in the bible and in Jesus as being divine, and I promise, one day soon I'll devote a whole separate post to that story.  For this post, however, I'll start at the point when it was no longer a question in my mind, and I knew I needed to tell my husband.

I knew that telling him that I wasn't a Christian anymore would hurt him.  I also thought it would probably scare him.  And I was afraid to have the conversation.  So I told him at the most opportunistic time possible -- when we were drunk one night in our living room, after the kids were in bed and we were relaxing and laughing and enjoying each other's company.  I remember him looking shocked.  And then concerned.  I think he even looked like he might cry.  So I quickly told him I was just joking, and that I just wanted to see his reaction.  He looked right through me as thought he didn't believe that I was joking, but that he wanted to believe that I was.  And we let it go.

Over the next few months, we warmed up to talking about it.  I think we both lost a little of our fear, and we discussed it while sober.  He was disappointed, of course.  He wanted me to go to heaven.  I reminded him that we had always believed together that once you're accept Jesus as your savior that you couldn't lose your salvation.  Saved is saved.  So if I was wrong and he was right and Jesus was going to judge me one day, that I was honestly and genuinely saved at one point, and I that I couldn't lose that, right?  That seemed to ease his mind a little, I think.  Or he was just humoring me, I'm not sure.

For the next year or so, at least, it was a tense subject that neither of us wanted to discuss.  Eventually we got to the point where we are now, where he understands how I feel and I understand how he feels, and we are ok with it.  It's still not easy, and there are definitely challenges that go along with our current situation.  But there are blessings as well.

Lets start with the blessings.  (Blessings is somewhat of a Christian-sounding word, isn't it?  You'll have to forgive me that one, it's one of the few "religious" words that I still embrace.)   One of the blessings of our situation is that while I no longer believe in the bible or in divine Jesus, I do still believe in God.  Or the Universe.  Or some divine cosmic energy.  That's huge, because I can only imagine the struggle my poor husband would have with accepting his wife was an atheist. Another blessing is that my husband and I are both open-minded people.  He believes that a lot of the popular interpretations of biblical scripture have been mistranslated and are probably misunderstood.  He's pretty solid in his belief that God has no problem with homosexuality.  That's huge, because I can only imagine the struggle I would have with him believing it was a sin, because I am a passionate supporter of LGBT equality.  Yet another blessing is that despite my changing religious beliefs, I still value human life above all, which means that I have remained Pro-Life, contrary to many of my liberal-thinking friends.  LGBT equality and Pro-Choice seem to be beliefs that are often lumped together these days, but thankfully for my marriage, abortion still doesn't sit well with my conscience.  That's not to say I don't empathize and feel for every woman, many of my close friends included, who have had to make that heart-wrenching choice.  I have no judgement for anyone, I just follow my heart.  It's a blessing, because my husband is very passionate about the issue, and I don't know how he would be able to handle me voting for legalized abortion.  His heart can only take so much!

So little things like those things that we can still connect on and agree on are so helpful as we navigate this uncharted territory.  Along with the blessings, however, our situation certainly has it's challenges.  Hardest for me is probably the fact that, out of respect for him, I still am not "out" as a non-Christian to our family and friends.  His parents and extended family are very much Christians, most of his cousins are evangelists or work for churches.  I don't want him to have to deal with the backlash of having a heathen wife, so I haven't yet admitted my changed beliefs to anyone outside of a close circle of my friends who are also non-Christians.   A couple of years ago, I did tell my closest sister, while we were talking on the phone one evening.  This sister was the least practicing Christian in my family, so I thought she would be the most understanding.  I remember her being in disbelief, as though it had never occurred to her to question Christianity.  She told me I should talk to a pastor, and sounded very concerned.  I remember telling her that I can't just choose what I believe.  It would be like realizing there's no Santa Claus, you can't just forget that you know that and choose to believe in him again.  I remember that conversation with her now and laugh, because now, two years later, that same sister is a very outspoken atheist.  It's as though she just needed me to open the door for her and show her that it was ok.  That makes me smile.
Another challenge for my family is that my kids don't know that my husband and I have differing beliefs.  We still occasionally attend church as a family, and my husband has graciously embraced a church that is a very laid back, contemporary Methodist church.  While it is still a Christian congregation, thankfully they're not a rigid, and I don't have to pretend to be devout.  I don't really pretend to be a Christian at all, but I guess it is assumed that I am one, all things considered.  I have never really told anyone otherwise at the church, except my close friend who invited me to attend that particular church in the first place.  I haven't told our kids that Daddy and I don't believe the same thing, mainly because I don't want to confuse them, or make them feel as though I think he's wrong, or he thinks I'm wrong.  It's a sticky situation, but hopefully they'll learn over time that we both feel that they should be open to learn about all religions, and choose whatever belief they feel works for them.  That seems to be working well so far with my teenage daughter, who loves the youth group at the non-denominational church she attends, but also seems to be leaning toward a belief in re-incarnation.  A little bit of my husband's and my beliefs both, in one amazing girl.  So I have hope that my two younger kids, ages 4 and 6, will ease into their own beliefs in much the same way.

There are certainly more challenges to my husband and I having differing beliefs, and I hope to touch on them in future posts.  I've been typing for too long tonight, so I am going to wrap this up.  Overall, I will say that the biggest positive to all of this is that my husband really loves me.  And I really love him as well.  Even when I get so frustrated that he doesn't see what I see, I understand that he needs Christianity, and that it is working for him.  And I have to remember that that is okay.  Overall, I am grateful that we have such a common respect for each other, and that our friendship is strong enough to weather the toughest times that our beliefs can sometimes throw at us.

More later, and thank you for reading this far!

~ Bonnie