I am religious and my partner is confidently atheistic. Our moral and ethical precepts are well-matched enough to get along with, even though they stem from different sources.
No, I don’t think that would work for me.
Yes. I became an atheist after we’d been married for several years. It made for a bit of a rough time until we settled into the new status quo.
I can’t wait to get to the point where the status quo isn’t rough.
If you don’t mind me asking, were kids in the mix? It’s been rough anyways, but kids are certainly making it much more so.
Thankfully no kids in the mix. I can imagine how that complicates things.
I’m vegan (24 years) and my wife is not. That doesn’t bother me, but I couldn’t handle it if she was religious.
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I find it so cool that you’ve been vegan for 24 years, as a younger vegan (7 years) I thank you for suffering through groceries with one brand of soy milk and maybe some tofu (if you’re lucky) so that we can live in this world were I have access to vegan fudgesicles at the local grocery store.
I’m curious though, because veganism has definitely been a point of contention in my past few relationships; how do you and your wife manage meals? Do you do separate meals, or is it more of a “she’s vegan at home” type situation?
For sure being vegan has gotten a lot easier since I started. At home, I’m very lucky that she does most of the cooking. Sometimes she eats what she makes for me, other times she makes herself something separate. I wash the dishes to my own standards, so I don’t worry about “contamination” except for a few things: cutting board, frying pan.
Being (or being with) a vegan can be super inconvenient at times. After all these years (married for 21), we are super well-adjusted to it.
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Sounds pretty inconsiderate of the meat eater to force the rest to handle corpses instead of just eat their meal
Actually, the meat eater did all the cooking and was very considerate with everyone’s wishes :-)
My wife’s Catholic, but apparently that means something different in the Philippines. More vague than dogmatic, I guess? In any case, her religion is nothing like the religion I know from America.
For example, she doesn’t know the first thing about the Bible, not even the standard Sunday school stuff. Nothing. Yes, I’m sure I’ll get comments that Christians don’t read the Bible, but her ignorance is astonishing. A comedian told a Bible joke and she clearly didn’t get it. "You know! It’s the story of ‘I forget’. Blank stare.
She doesn’t let it rule her life in any way. No church, rituals or confession either. We got married in a church, but that wasn’t important to her in the slightest. I wanted to marry there because it’s a quaint little place from the 1920s that was moved to my favorite outfitters (camping, kayaking, cabins, hiking, etc.) land.
She’s definitely prone to magical thinking, but not the “Jesus will make it all good.” sort. More like, “Your car’s AC is clearly failing.” “It’s OK. It was cold a few minutes ago.” Call it positivity in the extreme.
She has a rosary on the rear view window. Often grabs it and does the stations of the cross when nervous. (Which is kinda hilarious, but I don’t laugh.) Found a fairly nice crucifix in the trash and gave it to her. She was thrilled and hung it by her side of the bed. Whatever.
Now that I think on it, I should get her a really nice rosary from Christmas.
Philippines- and rosary-loving atheist here. She’s a keeper.
Oh, a lot of Filipinos can be quite cultural in their Catholicism.
As far as my own experience goes, catechism in Philippine public schools is more of a guy from the nearby church gives a series of weekly lectures that students don’t really pay attention to in order to have their first communion. And then after confirmation is treated more of a rite of passage than anything. Even my peers from Catholic schools aren’t that much better either, but they do have allotted time for religious teaching (or indoctrination). As far as people I know are concerned, they don’t take it seriously either.
There is no such thing as a Sunday school here, at least nothing that I know of.
There might be some people really serious about their Catholicism, but they’re few and far between. For a lot of people, going to church is for the Christmas eve mass (on night of the 24th of December), and maybe the Easter day mass, and sometimes even for their birthday (which is basically: go to church and pray for a bit, light a candle, etc.) However, going to church every Sunday is not something a lot of people do. And even when they do, not a lot pay attention to the homily and most just go through the ceremony and motions.
However, we can be pretty wild with our devotions: the Black Nazarene being the most well-known. Thousands of people flock to its yearly procession. And then there’s the infamous vows of being crucified during the yearly Lenten reenactment of Christ’s crucifixion in certain town and localities.
And then there’s our love of religious paraphenalia. Lots of Filipino homes have an altar with figures of their preferred saint alongside the icon or statue of the virgin Mary, Sacred Heart of Jesus and/or Jesus on the cross. This altar also has a candle (unlit, for safety, but sometimes lit for a few hours on certain days). This is also where some novena booklets, rosaries, and other blessed (as in sanctified by a priest in a special prayer at the end of novena masses) religious paraphernalia are placed.
Despite this outward show of religion, we barely know anything of it. Whatever little we may know of our religion mostly comes to us via whatever our parents teach us, if at all, or that scant cathecism given to us before our first communion. It’s no wonder then, that most of us don’t have any idea what our religion requires us to believe, or whatever the bible says. The bible might sometimes be part of the family altar, but often, it’s just there to gather dust.
Just a disclaimer though, while I count myself among the people I described, I later on became agnostic. However, only my partner (who is more of a Reddit atheist, btw) knows that.
Not surprised the Filipino catholic experience is similar to the latino catholic experience in my neck of the woods. Grew up catholic in a catholic school, and yeah, what you describe tracks. Down to the altar and general ignorance about the nitty gritty.
Also, the cath school thing, around here kids didn’t take the religion class too seriously either. From my class, of about 60-70 kids, only two enrolled into a numerary programme, and besides them, I know a handful are devout church-goers.
I also ended up agnostic, and luckily it only ever turned out to be a problem in two relationships.
WOW! I’ll have my wife give your comment a read. Sounds about exactly as I had imagined her religious background.
And again, for those not in the US, religion is a very different animal halfway around the planet.
What is the joke or story of ‘I forgot’?
We’re both religious; we both identify as (unaffiliated) Satanists.
She’s semi-Buddhist, from a country where that’s prevalent. She would probably visit a temple or something if we weren’t always together, but it’s not like I stop her from going.
She vaguely thinks there may be something out there but it has zero bearing on her life. I think that makes her functionally an agnostic atheist.
ha, naw. i couldnt be with someone who believes in nonsense
Yes, she’s wiccan, but certainly not pushy about it.
Yes and it can be a challenge. We married before I had really solidified my views on it. Ironically my views became solid AF because I started reading the Bible. Fixed me up right away.
We get by because she does not push it on me and I don’t really talk to her about it. I get along with her and her family because they are really good people who choose to follow the best parts of the Bible. They are relatively progressive, meaning they are tolerant of other religions, accept abortion more or less along the lines of Roe v. Wade, etc. I do wish she was an atheist because I liken religion to a cult and sometimes when she makes negative comments about MAGA people I have to hold my tongue. But otherwise she’s great. She takes care of me and I her. Been married 20 years.
If anything happened to her I think I would actively seek a new mate who was atheist.
I am single. I haven’t dated a religious woman since 2008 and will not again, she was enough.
My husband and I were both still practicing Catholics when we met, even went to church together. Then he stopped going but I still did.
We moved to a different state and both started working from home. I stopped going to church because it was a small rural Midwest town and I stuck out too much (am brown).
Working from home meant a lot of computer time and YouTube rabbit holes. Between Sam Harris and Dan Barker, I found myself no longer believing.
My husband also ended up an atheist on his own, though we never discussed any of it with each other. I don’t even think he watched any of the same videos. Just one day I guess we talked about it and discovered we were both no longer Catholic.
Congrats to you both!
No, that is a deal breaker for me.
I’d consider it, but if they’re serious about it, I’m sure they wouldn’t love the way I look at them when they explain how well their spell/saint’s toe is working.
We are both atheist however I have to appear pious at times, I hope that it doesn’t get me into trouble with her parents who are rather anti-religious and who don’t believe that I am atheist
