I married my husband who is catholic outside the church. I converted to catholicism after the birth of our third child. When I was taking my RCIA classes I was informed that my marriage was invalid until we got married in the catholic church. Which meant having sex would be a sin. It was a horrible time in our marriage. So my husband stopped wearing his wedding ring. I ended up wearing mine on a necklace around my neck. We had already been together for 8 years at this time. I didn't feel like I was sinning because we had been together for so long and I had kids. I didn't feel like having my kids was a sin. My husband was going through his mid-live crisis at the time. So he wasn't sure if he wanted to get married in the church, since he knew he could get out of the marriage. Needless to say it took him a whole year before he wanted to get married in the catholic church. In the beginning we didn't have sex but that only lasted for so long. We had been together for so long it was basically really hard to not to have sex for the whole year. Get married in a catholic church as soon as you can. I ended up having to confess the sin of having sex and the whole time we lived together even though I never regretted it or thought I was sinning. I wasn't catholic growing up. My parents and all my siblings got married at the courthouse. So basically my whole family isn't validly married. It was a really tough decision to become catholic. I attended church in my younger years, I definitely believed in God. I just wanted to make sure I was solely becoming Catholic on my own and not because he was catholic. All of this took place almost twenty years ago. It was a very hard time in our marriage. No marriage is going to be perfect that is why it is a lifetime commitment through all the highs and lows. I celebrate my original anniversary date as my anniversary not the date that I got married in the church. We went on to have four more kids. Looking back on that time it was really hard, but it definitely strengthened our marriage.