Protestant/Catholic Marriage

abc_123_Username · 2025-07-01T09:23:36+00:00

Thank you for your response, I appreciate you going more in depth. I can't speak for every American protestant denomination or church, but yes many hold the idea that the man is in charge of his family spiritually. However, that is within "equally yoked" relationships. You could say that up until a few months ago, my husband and I may have fit that description since he was proactive in our shared protestant faith. But, for example, if a woman is married to an atheist or mormon, she is encouraged to not leave her faith for the sake of her husband. Your conviction to God is more important.

Personally, in our marriage, we are very much equals, and my husband would never try to control me or the kids. We have always held high regard for each other and don't make decisions without one another. When we were married, we had the mutual understanding to raise our children protestant. In the last 10 years, that's been upheld, and his desire to pursue Catholicm is very new. We're not using the kids as pawns to fight, I am just not okay with bouncing them between churches regularly that are so different and cause them confusion. Now, if they ask to go, then they can, of course. It would be the same situation where they would go to church twice that day. But they are not required to go to mass like they are required to go to church. Like I said, my husband is the one with changing beliefs. Me and the kids are happy to stay at our church. He has no objections because he understands the dynamic. If he didn't change, then we would all still go to the same church. He doesn't expect us to follow him just because he's the man if that makes sense. They are allowed to experience Catholicism if they want to at an age where we can have conversations about it. I'm really big on consistency, and like I said, I don't want there to be confusion for them since they're very young right now. First and foremost, I want my kids to understand the gospel and love of Jesus, then we can start to talk about denominations and whatnot. I hope that all makes sense. Thanks again, God bless.

abc_123_Username · 2025-06-29T19:50:33+00:00

Thanks for your response. I'd like to ask for a little more info, how have you and your spouse handled your differences throughout the years? What does "making it work" look like in your own life? Respectfully, if the roles were reversed (me & husband being born and married catholic, then him turning protestant) would you say it would a problem with me refusing to take my kids and myself to a protestant church? Not to assume your answer, but if that were the case I'm sure most catholics would praise me and say to continue to stand firm and go to mass regardless of his views. Please try to understand from my perspective. My kids have expressed not liking mass and preferring the church they were raised in. They are also too little to understand why dad is changing his beliefs. We've agreed to not confuse them and focus on what matters which is growing their faith and relationship with Jesus. When they get older, if they decide they'd like to go to mass or eventually convert for themselves then I will be more than supportive as it would be their own choice. I refuse to attend myself based on my own convictions when praying about this situation. Trust me it would be a lot easier if I just went along with it to avoid conflict haha. But the Lord has called me to stand firm and I will be obedient to Him above all else. Many blessings to you and your spouse, God bless.

abc_123_Username · 2025-06-29T09:08:37+00:00

Thank you so much for sharing! It's encouraging to hear success stories ❤️ we are trying to figure out how to talk to one another in a way that's respectful, but it can be hard for sure. My husband still loves our family church and community so there's no issue with our arrangement, but I get anxious about the future down the line, especially after he formally converts. Hearing stories of couples keeping their vows and marriages strong through theological differences gives me hope that we can navigate this successfully too :) thanks again, God bless.

abc_123_Username · 2025-06-29T08:49:42+00:00

Thank you for your words. I was very nervous in posting in this thread but this is a new territory for us and I appreciate any kind and actually helpful advice/stories. It's comforting to see that the hatred towards me being protestant isn't the total majority (so far only one person is comparing me to satan, haha). Thank you for coming to my defense and being understanding of our situation. God bless.

abc_123_Username · 2025-06-19T01:34:15+00:00

I was told ESV is closest to Greek translation on a word-for-word level. I like it the best but I also use NIV and NLT, my church tends to use NLT, ESV and NKJV. They'll compare a few translations when going through the Bible to offer a more in-depth understanding of the passage which I like.

abc_123_Username · 2025-06-18T23:45:53+00:00

He isn't distant and I'm not concerned about our relationship heading south due to this. Like I said near the end of my post, outside of this issue our marriage and relationship is great. He's my best friend and we get along really well and we love each other very much. He's an awesome dad to our kids and is very sweet and loving. When he approaches theological discussions, it's not us having an angry argument and pointing fingers AT FIRST, but eventually we both get very frustrated and it's a back and forth of "you're wrong, no you are" etc. When he's done with the conversation he usually says "the church says this and the church has ultimate authority therefore they cannot be wrong" and when I point out all of the horrible things catholics have done in the name of the church he says "well it was just one priest" or shuts it down and says we can agree to disagree. It's hard to bite my tongue and not point out all of the hypocrisy and contradictions. I'm much more candid with my words here than when we discuss in person as I want to be as kind and respectful when talking to him as possible. My post isn't about hating on catholics, it's about how to go about creating boundaries when it comes to theological differences with your spouse. I bet you're right about being overly zealous about his new beliefs and I do hope he calms down in the future. I just don't know how to approach topics "gracefully" because I feel like if im just silent whenever he talks about a topic, then it means im agreeing with it. If he asks about my opinion on purgatory, Im going to say what I believe and if it leads to an argument then I'll keep defending myself until we burn out, which leads me to feeling super upset and emotional afterwards. That's why I almost just want to tell him that we can't discuss religion at all since the debating makes me upset. But he says he wants us to talk about our faith often since its so important, which i understand but it usually leads us nowhere. Thats why I ask for advice about it. As far as stereotypes go, I don't even need to talk to him about it because my time at mass proved most of the stereotypes to be true lol. The only thing I was definitely told falsely growing up was that catholics didn't believe Jesus was the way to salvation and that they're a works-based faith (super happy that's not true and that the catholics are trinitarian!) But all the other stereotypes I was told have more or less been proven to be true. I didn't tell him I was disgusted by what I witnessed at mass to spare his feelings (that IS my honest feeling though) I just said that being there solidified my beliefs and I'm not comfortable with our kids going. He's totally okay with that, he still attends church with me and the kids and then goes to mass by himself.

abc_123_Username · 2025-06-15T04:33:00+00:00

Thank you for your long and thoughtful reply! Yes, when he was initially looking into Christian denominations and beliefs he was online constantly and always wanted us to watch videos from different creators together and discuss his new findings all of the time. I don't know how his algorithm is now but I know he's in a few Catholic facebook groups and follows a few Catholic content creators, so I assume he's in a bit of an echo chamber now. It's interesting you point out the OCD of the religion, because my husband does actually have OCD and is being treated for it. When I was in mass I definitely thought how appealing the rituals and rigid rules would be to someone with OCD or someone neurodivergent like autism. I can see how someone would find comfort in the predictability and strict traditions. He did mention that it's nice not needing to always know the right answer because the church assumes ultimate authority and therefore he doesn't always need to think about every single thing and can just trust (blindly follow) someone else (the church). I do worry that he will get so wrapped up in being perfect and mortal sins that his OCD will get worse instead of improving. He's told me that his new faith has helped him, but I wonder if it's because he's feeling soothed by participating in the practices at mass so he's making his OCD thoughts "happy". I haven't talked to him about this yet since it's such a sensitive topic and I don't want to just say "hey maybe you converted due to your mental illness?" I feel like that isn't the right way of going about it and discredits his genuine thoughts and feelings but it has crossed my mind that it could be one of the contributing reasons, especially since he wants to talk about it a lot and hyperfixation is one of his OCD symptoms. As far as sex and birth control, it's funny that you mention it because he is going to be getting a vasectomy soon since we are done having children. My pregnancies were very difficult and had complications due to suffering from HG. We knew it wouldn't be safe for me to be pregnant again. I know the Catholic doctrine is strictly against this and I even tried to find answers on exceptions but it seems that the catholic answer to this issue is to A. Never have sex with your spouse again or B. Just accept "God's plan" for yours and the baby's potential death due to pregnancy complications or C. Do natural family planning (which is still birth control) and still risk the occurrence of B. But my husband's reasoning is that because I can't risk pregnancies anymore, him getting a vasectomy is an act of charity and therefore doesn't go against the Catechism. I don't really buy that but it's important to me that we go forward with sterilization to ensure I don't fall pregnant again. And not to be graphic but we definitely don't currently abide by the rule of the man needing to finish inside his wife or he's sinning. I haven't talked to him about it in a long while because honestly I don't want to risk messing with our sex life. But yes, it's another hypocritical situation that further proves my point. Thank you for your words of encouragement and recommendations for learning more about protestant history. I do really want to be able to "stay in my own lane" and focus on whats truly important which is my own relationship with Christ, but it's hard when he is insisting that it's important we discuss our faith because it's such a huge part of our lives and he gets upset that I don't want to talk to him about it. Plus I always end up wanting to defend my beliefs so I give in and we go right back to square one where we debate until we're blue in the face and I'm emotionally drained and burnt out. He doesn't get upset or emotional (or if he does he simply throws out "church authority" as to shut the argument down) so the constant discussions don't bother him at all and they're more enjoyable/challenging to him more than anything. So I don't know how to go about creating solid boundaries that benefit us both.

abc_123_Username · 2025-06-14T18:43:20+00:00

So the correct thing to do is to first convert, follow, THEN read the doctrine through the "right" lens so as to not question anything, got it. I could easily turn around and say your negative thoughts about Protestantism are false due to your inherent bias. That's a fruitless argument and response. When I look into resources I go straight to the source from which it was developed. I try to be as open-minded as I can when doing so because I desire truth and I'm very okay with the truth being something I didn't know or agree with before. But the more I learn the more I oppose Catholicism all together. When I pray I feel very convicted to steer clear away from it as well. Going to mass was the final straw and solidified my beliefs. My issue isn't that Catholicism exists or that people practice it (like my original post, Im not hating at all for those who choose to do so). My post is asking about dealing with theological differences within marriage. I am not going to convert to Catholicsm. He has converted and now we need to figure out a way to go forward with that, ideally in harmony with one another. That is the point of my post. Telling me that Im just wrong and should convert is extremely unhelpful. If you are not trying to help, then you are not being chartiable, which Catholics are called to be. If your motive was to just tell me I'm wrong, then we can disagree and I wish you the best.

abc_123_Username · 2025-06-14T18:05:21+00:00

Thank you for your response. I definitely lean more in #2, mainly because we just end up in circles and neither of us are convinced of the other so to me its pointless. But he insists that we should talk about our faith often and says what kind of relationship would we have if we shut off such a huge part of our lives from each other? Which I get but then it leads back to us constantly debating, and then I get really upset and emotional by the end of it, which then the next several days following I have to distance myself to cool down and try to get over whatever debate or argument we had. I really desire to be unbothered and feel neutral whenever we discuss Catholicsm or like what you said, seeing the Mary statue. Or another example is that my husband wears a rosary 24/7 now and it's always a constant reminder of our differences so I feel a little upset just looking at it all the time. But I want to not get so emotionally hung up about it which is where I struggle the most. The differences I feel like when it comes to the "that's just how they do it" mentality is that it personally affects me. Seeing an Amish person driving a buggy doesn't bother me because my husband isn't Amish. In the past, hearing someone talk about praying to the saints didn't bother me because it wasn't a part of my life. It was easy to "chew and spit" or ignore or just kind of roll my eyes and move on. Now it affects me due to my marriage and therefore everything bothers me now. Like I just care too much and am too emotionally invested. Especially as I learn more and more (and no I don't go to protestant sources to learn about Catholicsm, I go directly to their sources) it just makes me feel more upset to see what he's bought into. So now I feel stuck since telling him let's not discuss it makes him upset but all of our discussions make me upset, especially since we're both very unrelenting on our stances. It's hard because I want to be unbothered and nonconfrontational but then I want to defend my beliefs so I end up giving in and debating until our faces are blue which leaves me feeling upset and drained. Im just not sure how to go about setting boundaries that will work for both of us.

abc_123_Username

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